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THE MATTER 



OF 



MANNER 



BY D. C. 



1S63. 

HENRY S. PRATT, 

SUDBURY. 




SUDBURY t 

HENRY S. PRATT, PRINTER, 

MARKET HILL. 




Wm Paffci: of Ulamtcr, 



When two goats met on a bridge which was too narrow 
to allow either to pass or return, the goat which lay down 
that the other might walk over it, was a finer gentleman 
than Lord Chesterfield —Cecil. 



The Matter of Manner. A subject of far deeper 
interest than at first sight appears. It dips into principle, 
heart, feeling, charity ; it has a mighty influence upon 
the present happiness, and upon the destinies of man- 
kind. The four cardinal virtues of an old church are 
included in the Matter of Manner. Mere manner is 
surface ; it may be the hue of the heavens, the hectic 
of a disease, the vane of the elements, the gloom of the 
grey •winter evening, the bright glow of a summer 
morning's dawn : but the Matter of Manner is the safe- 
guard Qi' the pitfall of virtue, the armour of the valiant, 
the weakness of the vacillating. In this view manner is 



the index, matter the subject indicated. We have to 
distinguish between them where they are naturally sepa- 
rated, and recognise the importance of their union where 
they are essentially and properly combined. Few phases 
of life have greater intrinsic importance to commend 
them to the consideration of the reflective ; and due 
attention to the subject may result in an addition to 
the sum of human happiness. 



It is to this end, that, with the co-operation of the 
reader, I venture to dedicate the following pages. 

In considering manner, we have nothing to do with 
the author in his study, the ascetic in his seclusion, or 
the solitary in his retirement, saving only, as the edu- 
cation of the inner heart affects the external bearing 
of the man in his social influences. 

I?' Manner, as we should construe the term, is not defined 

to mean the adoption of certain gestures, the rigid ad- 
herence to certain rules and ceremonies, or the negation 
of those of them which are offensive ; but rather the actual 
exhibition of the heart in its operation upon the outer 



man, and in its power for good or evil upon the outer 
world. Utterly debasing vulgarity is perfectly consistent 
with the code of manners framed by that horror of young 
neophytes, the famous preceptorial ogre, Mr. Vyse. 
When the youth was invited to the chamber of his 
elders and superiors, he was to tap at the door softly, 
and when bade to ' come in," he was, very modestly, to 
open the door, and stand still till he was summoned 
to advance ; and when he ventured to speak, he was 
to make a bow before he began, and bow again at 
the conclusion ; he was not to speak above a whisper ; 
and he was to place one hand in the bosom of his 
waistcoat, and the other on his knee; he was not to 
bite his nails, sing, whistle, yawn, or shut the door in 
any one's face ! These were sad and sufficiently comic 
specimens of coercion to favour good manners ; and 
Madame Celnart, a celebrated writer on etiquette, in- 
structs people never to talk of their own professions. 
This was well enough, but she enjoined them to talk 
freely upon matters which they were not supposed to 
understand. The soldier was to converse about divinity ; 
the clergyman about law ; and the lawyer was to dis- 
course upon sanitary matters. In a word, she made the 



mistake which has been the weak point of many writers 
upon manners and etiquette ; — she tried to make people 
amiable by rule, instead of cultivating the better and 
more enduring principles of an intelligent mind, a well 
regulated understanding, and a warm heart. In the 
combined operations and influences of this triad is to 
be found the secret of a solid and right manner. 

The power of manner is greater than appears on the 
surface. The sympathies of youth are soon traced by 
watching the operation of their imitative faculties ; how 
soon they acquire the expressions, the gestures, the smiles, 
and the manners of those with whom they associate, 
especially if their affections have been called into play ! 
The sotto voce appeal in a pathetic peroration, the tear 
accompanying the recital of a tale of distress, the manly 
and heroic enunciation that properly illustrates a martial 
story, the appearance of indignation at a bare allusion 
to oppression, gravity accompanying rebuke, every look, 
every attitude, if consistent with the time, place, and 
circumstances, will call forth a response in the hearts 
and manifestations of those to whom they are addressed, 
and indicate the influence of manner over the minds 



and feelings of all to whom it has been intended to 
apply. Let us read aloud a talc of sorrow with pathos, 
and not only is our auditory more affected, but our own 
emotions are kindled with increased warmth. Grace 
and elegance in an orator give accumulated force to 
every word he utters ; and the want of those accom- 
paniments has often and often neutralized the beauty 
and power of language, and destroyed its due effect. 
I mean, emphatically, the grace and elegance which take 
their spring from, or are fed by, the finer sympathies of 
a kind heart, directed by a well-meaning mind ; for I 
regard it as a moral certainty, that no pure and lasting 
impression is created by the power of eloquence or 
gesture, unless it be accompanied by a subjective 
respect for the character of the orator, — or at least, 
if there be any thing within our knowledge to create 
indifference or disrespect. The words of a pulpit orator 
of good repute have far larger influence in their moral 
tendency, than the same words uttered by auother, who 
is believed to belie by the practice of his life, the theory 
he is propounding. I argue for sincerity, not merely 
because it is substantially and practically good in itself, 
but because it gives force and vitality to the virtue of 



manner, and because without it, manner would, like the 
plating of some of the continental coins, wear off at 
the slightest using. I argue for a smooth tongue, a 
guileless manner, a graceful gesture, a benevolent aspect, 
as almost necessary requisites to solid virtue, — not as 
substitutes for it, — and because our good should not be 
evil spoken of, I desire that that good should be pre- 
sented to us in its best dress. It is important that 
nien should appear virtuous and well meaning, but this 
precept does not necessarily convey the inference that 
men should " assume a virtue if they have it not.'' 

We are told by the poet, that " manners make the man." 
It is not necessarily nor generally so. The man makes 
the manners ; as are the manners so is the man. The 
varied tints of a bouquet have become ripened by 
the sun, the extrinsic has heightened the colours, but 
the laboratory was within the flowers ; — the genial breeze 
plays along the waving grass, and produces a picture 
to gratify our eye, with varied shades of verdure, but 
it must not be thought that the sunbeam and the zephyr 
have done all this. The velvet glade was already 
there, and the outward influences have but developed 



its intrinsic beauty. They would not have produced a 
similar effect upon the sterile rock or the barren plain. 
The morning air does but add to the loveliness of the 
svlph, the dreams of poetry had already rested on her 
cheek. So with manner. It radiates from centre 
points, head and heart must combine, and it should 
be as they are. 

Sincerity is the best test of manner, in its connexion 
with the matter it predicates ; and whether it can be 
adequately or accurately measured or not, there is an 
actual, although perhaps not definable, avenue of com- 
munication between man and man, by which almost 
every rational and thinking person can recognise, though 
he may not perhaps be able to demonstrate, whether 
or not the surface be a truthful manifestation of that 
which is working within. 

As the bloom upon the fruit, as the gem upon the 
rose, as the conscious suffusion which gently mantles 
the cheek of beauty, as the tint upon the eastern shores, 
as the azare of the skies, so are the manners of men 
when they are the outward indications of a pure taste, 



^=5^3=^-- , 



4^ 



a cultivated mind, and a right heart. And if it be 
said, that valuable treasures were in Portia's casket, 
unattractive though it was, or that Pandora's box, or 
Pandora's self, partook of the nature and the elements 
of earthly things in their combination of good and 
evil, I reply that we choose not the rose because of its 
thorn, but in spite of its presence ; and the casket, and 
the box, in like manner ;— having brought our judgment 
to our aid, without reference to our better tastes and our 
better ideas : so, if we love men simply for their intrinsic 
and sterling worth, we should surely love them more 
intensely, if that worth were clad in an attractive guise. 
We argue for manners, as we do for the bloom or the 
dew-drop, simply because they add beauty to those 
attributes, without which they would, regarded by 
themselves, be of small worth. If we were to meet 
with one of our kind, of surpassing beauty, with lines 
such as could be conceived and chiselled by a Phidias, 
and with such agile flexible movements as could be im- 
parted by a Daedalus, we should scarcely be moved in the 
slightest approach to ecstasy, unless that grace and vital 
force were superinduced, which can arise only from the 
united influences of a rightly meaning heart and the 



manners that spring from a mind elevated and chaste. 
There is a mysterious path, whose exact tracings have 
never yet been threaded, leading from the enchant- 
ment of a pleasing exterior, to the deepest and most 
hidden labyrinths of feeling : it is traversed when the 
grace of the air and the truthfulness of the heart 
entrance us by their beauty in union ; and when, and as 
in one moment, our tastes are captivated, our judgments 
convinced, and our affections aroused ;— 

" When the ripe colours soften and unite. 
And sweetly melt into just shade and light." 

I care not for a gracious manner simply, but for 
the manner that manifests a gracious heart. The fas- 
cination of real in- bred politeness is not. an art, for 
where it exists, mere art is absent ; it is a reality 
that extends its influence beyond its actual presence. 
It winds its silken cord around our own. souls, and 
penetrates our affections and our sympathies. Tinsel 
glitters, but it does not captivate. " Nature's nobility " 
is another expression for the manner I have described. 
This manner is indeed like sunshine in a shady place : it 
gives tone to music, sweetness to honey, fragrance to 
the violet. 




■1 

10 

I regard manner, not as being simply the ornament 
and drapery of high and substantial virtues, not as 
being merely the meet attendant upon actual and solid 
principles, but as being itself a high and substantial 
virtue, or a debasing and actual vice ; as being itself 
a solid principle; and it may indeed be said, with Bishop 
Middleton, "that virtue itself offends when coupled with 
a forbidding manner." It may be argued that manner, 
like charity, may cover a multitude of sins ; that there 
may be nothing but manner. So, if the argument holds 
good, kneeling in prayer may simply be a posture — yet, 
the act of kneeling is good : attending Divine worship is 
by itself a mockery, unless accompanied by devotion, and 
yet who shall say that "assembling yourselves together 
as the manner of some is," is not necessary ? Manner 
which is only on the surface, is simply hypocrisy ; and 
yet manner is indispensable : it is the hypocrisy that 
should be rooted out, — not the manner. It elevates 
or depresses those with whom it comes in contact ; it 
makes or mars happiness ; and in this light it may 
be viewed as a motive power of itself; but it is mon 
than this ; it is an indication of the whole mind and 
the whole heart, and it has sufficient leaven in it to 




11 

grace or intensify a inan's doubtful qualities, or detract 
from his best impulses. The want of an engaging 
manner causes the good to be evil spoken of, the pre- 
sence of it gives power and weight to what are usually 
considered the more solid principles of the human heart. 
What might and influence are in the eye that beams with 
trust and invites our confidence, — the smile that lights up 
a home of joy in our hearts, the earnestness of gesture, 
and the readiness of thought and of sympathy that 
chases away every cloud, and gilds our path with 
sunshine ! 

"Whate'er he does is done with. so much ease, 
In him alone 'tis natural to please; 
His motions all accompanied with grace, 
And paradise is opened in his face." 

As with a nation a quasi unpopular law may quietly 
gain the cheerfulness of true and ready obedience, by 
the manner of its operation, so, with individuals, may 
even unwelcome truths be received with grateful emo- 
tions, if • the manner of their development be gracious 
and winning. Courtliness does not mean courteousness : |] 
a peasant may be courteous without being courtly, a 
prince can scarcely be so. Courtliness in the former 
may be out of place ; in the latter it is indispensable. 



12 

The late Dr. Chalmers very elaborately defined the 
difference between the two. " To be courteous is one 
thing, to be courtly is another. ' The one refers to 
the disposition, the other to the external behaviour. 
The one is a virtue, the other an accomplishment. The 
one is grace of character, the other grace of manner. 
A man may be courteous without being courtly." And 
the Doctor might have added, "a man may be courtly 
without being courteous." — " There may be elegance in 
every gesture, and gracefulness in every position ; not 
a smile out of place, not a step but would bear the 
measurement of the severest scrutiny. This is all very 
fine; but what I want is the heart and the gaiety 
of social intercourse, — the frankness that spreads ease 
and animation around it, — the eye that speaks affability 
to all, that chases timidity from every bosom, and tells 
every man in the company to be confident and happy." 
It must have been a man with such indications that 
was in the mind of Shakspere, who knew so well how 
to estimate in-born nobility, when he said : — 



" Inquire me out some mean-born getdteman, 

Whom. I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter." 



13 

It is not sufficient to be sturdily honest ; a man 
who affects to despise the outside attractiveness of a 
gentleman, upon the plea that he has invested all his 
virtue in the interior, is simply a foolish fellow. To 
despise has a more disagreeable recoil than to hate ; 
contempt has a spice of malignity in it, while mere 
dislike possesses singleness of character at least. You 
would avoid a really bad man if you knew him to be 
so ; you would not admit him as an associate within 
your inner circle ; but a man of imputed sterling worth 
and of bad manners may more frequently cross your 
path; and you are obliged to submit to the drudgery 
of juxta-position as a holocaust to your estimation of 
severe and disagreeable virtue. 

Real merit is tested by your judgment, but manner 
permeates through your senses ; — that may be measured 
at a distance, this forces itself to a contact. The 
diamond is valueless till it is polished, and its brilliant 
radiations form the gem. What curves are in the 
measure of material beauty, manner is in its application 
to social intercourse. If you desire the respect of your 
kind, be right ; if you wish to engage their affections, 



4=. 

I 



14 

appear so. Be what you seem,- but never forget to 
seem what you are. Sharp corners for rigid line and 
square, circles and their syntheses for beauty. Why 
should we rush to the good qualities we have, to com- 
pensate for those we have not ? Why should we draw 
upon our virtues, of which none of us have too many, 
to counterpoise and to justify that in us which offends ? 



Am I supposed to disparage real and sterling merit, — 
to place it on the second form ? This would be an unjust 
conclusion, an unfair inference. This essay is devoted 
to the study of manner, to the due estimate of its import- 
ance ; and to its advocacy alone or chiefly, must my 
pen bend itself; not, it is true, at the cost of any 
other virtue, but assuredly not with any sacrifice of 
its own. 



It is an old and trite remark that " a first appearance 
is a letter of recommendation " ; — if so, manner has 
its weight, even though there be little besides to recom- 
mend or to sustain it. But while admitting that fact, 
while acknowledging that many a man of solid attain- 
ments and high moral worth has sunk into the pitfalls 




15 

of society, or has been pressed clown to the lower 
forms for want of manner, its relative value nevertheless 
should be estimated, and its due place assigned to it. It 
should be regarded as one, though only one, of the 
means by which society is benefited, and as each integer 
constitutes an element of an abstract total, it should 
always be remembered that while efforts are made to 
retain the total intact, so the several parts are simply 
links of the chain by which the whole is held together. 

A great pre-requisite, in order that manner should 
have its due influence, and should duly exercise its 
force, is that it should be natural. Let it spring from 
the heart, though its origin be with the "faultless 
monster" that the world never saw. 



How beautiful the face of nature ! a charming spring 
sky, " half sunshine half tears," over- arches the scene ; 
there are sloping downs and upland lawns ; between 
us and the farthest outline is a gently flowing river, 
the idol of tourists, and beyond again, but distinguished 
chiefly by its glitter, is the sparkling ocean, just suf- 
ficiently far off, as not to offend the eye by its spangliug 



i^zg^EiS 



16 

brightness. And while nature in still life is yet busy- 
in its beauty, there is the gentle hum of vitality in 
the flocks and herds which gaily decorate the fore- 
ground, and the singing birds which flutter among the 
foliage hard by, and " there is happiness in the world 
after all." 



With a heart aright, with a mind alive to the im- 
pressions such a scene is calculated to produce, with 
a thankful uplifted soul, oh, who can adequately describe 
the full appreciation of nature thus developed ? The ten- 
dency towards being natural and sincere promotes the ex- 
tinction of evil-mindedness, and the fostering of ingenuous 
frankness and charity. Let each of us contribute his 
quota to this inkling of paradise. "I am sure," said 
the child, "I do not know how it is that everybody 
loves me, unless it is that I love everybody." And 
the Miller of Mansfield illustrated the contrary principle 
when he sang — 

" Who cares for nobody, no, not I ; 
For nobody cares for me." 

Heartiness begets heartiness ; emulation in goodwill 
produces goodwill ; a manner that has an e\idence of 




17 

right as its basis, produces the right which floats upon 
the surface. 



u Civility, my good friend," said an eminent man of 
fashion of the last century,—" may be truly said to 
cost nothing ; if it does not meet with a due return, 
it at least leaves you in a creditable position. When 
I was young, I was acquainted with a striking example 
of what may sometimes be gained by it, though my 
friend on this occasion did not, I assure you, expect 
to benefit by his politeness. In leaving the opera one 
evening, a short time previous to the fall of the curtain, 
he overtook in the lobby an elderly lady, making her 
way out to avoid the crowd ; she was dressed in a 
most peculiar manner, with hoop and brocade, and a 
pyramid of hair ; in fact, she was at least a century 
behind the rest of the world, in her costume. So singular 
an apparition had attracted the attention of half-a-dozen 
Lord Dukes and Sir Harrys, sitting in the lobby, and 
as she slowly moved towards the box entrance, they 
amused themselves by making impertinent remarks on 
her extraordinary dress and infirm gait. 



18 

"Directly my friend caught sight of them and saw 
what they were after, he went to her assistance, threat- 
ened to give them in charge, and with his best bow 
offered her his arm. She accepted it, and, on the stairs, 
he inquired whether she had a carriage, at the same 
-time intimating his willingness to go for one. ' Thank 
you Sir, I have,' replied the old lady, 'if you will only 
be good enough to remain with me till it arrives.' As 
she was speaking, her servant came up, and making the 
cavalier a very stately curtsey, she requested to know to 
whom she had the honour to be indebted for so much 
attention. 'My name, madam,' replied the stranger, 'is 
Boothby, but I am usually called Prince Boothby ;' upon 
which the antiquated lady left. Well, from that hour 
Boothby never saw her again, and did not even hear 
of her till her death, which took place a few years 
after, when he received a letter from her lawyer, an* 
nouncing to him the agreeable intelligence of her having 
left bim heir to several thousands a year ! 

"'Now, my good sir,' said our moralist, 'for the 
future, pray remember Prince Boothby.'" 



19 

Manner is very frequently imbibed and created by 
the force of surrounding circumstances. This notion 
may enable us to account for the peculiar characteristics 
of various peoples. It may in some measure answer 
the questions, why are the French light, the Irish witty, 
the Scotch cautious, the Americans rash and headstrong, 
the Germans thoughtful and slow ? why are there dis- 
tinctive peculiarities attributed, at least, to various pro- 
vinces in England, as elsewhere ? In racing towns, 
the daughters as well as sons teem with the turf; in 
small Cathedral cities, church preferments and clerical 
incidents are the prevailing topics ; in the city, accounts 
and merchandize ; in the manufacturing districts, traffic 
and manufacturing details percolate through air the veins 
of conversation. Families by their associations have 
similar thoughts and perceptions ; and as to the outer 
world, their arguments and convictions generally run in 
one direction. 

There is something too in the old notion of awakening 
children by plaintive music, and in teaching them courage $ 
and very much in their being led to avoid evil com- 
munications. 



20 

May not the sombre tinge of Robert Hall's character 
be attributable, in addition to the agonies of body to 
which he was so often subject, to the peculiar mode 
of his early education ? He learned his alphabet from 
the inscriptions on the tombstones that peered, like 
ghosts, in the graveyard adjoining his father's house, 
under the tuition of a good, affectionate, and persevering 
nurse, who was '' sicklied o'er with the pale cast of 
thought," and whose depressed nature and depressing 
influences may be recognised in the very latest" years 
If of her pupil's ' life. 

I I refer now to manner as a faithful indicator of the 

I 1 ! truth ; manner as it is shown by a man, in his outward 

I action, to be a reflex of his inward workings. This, 

| however, is to be considered with some modification, on 
jl| the basis of sincerity. If you see a man conducting him- 

I self unwisely, you are not necessarily called upon to say 

|f he is a fool, but I know of no law to prevent your 
thinking so. The hypocrisy consists in some act or 
word indicating a dishonest inconsistency between your 
words and your thoughts. The hands upon the dial- 
plate will show whether the interior works are right 






21 



or not. If they be really untruthful, or if the mau be 
really so in life and habits, some symptom will inevitably 
show itself to the discerning observer. My allusion 
to the dial-plate may be said not to be an apposite 
one ; for if the chain have run down, the dial must tell 
the truth twice a day. I reply, yes, if the chain have 
run down : so with man, if his pulse has ceased to 
beat and the visage pourtrays that fact, the truth is too 
evident for doubt : there is no hypocrisy then, — for 
manner is at that moment, if ever, a solemn and infallible 
testimony to the fact. 



I have intimated that the discerning observer will 
discover the connexion between appearances and facts, 
in reference to a man's sincerity and truth ; but more 
than this, the hypocrite will be one day inevitably found 
out, — I had almost said, by all, — certainly by some one or 
more, every day of his life. There are two kinds of 
hypocrites, — one assumes to be what he is not, the 
other cudeavours to hide what he is. The two charac- 
ters may be fitly joined and realized in one person ; — 
in both of these manner belies matter. "The words of 
his mouth were softer than butter, having war in his 



22 

heart ; his words were smoother than oil, and yet be 
they very swords." Hypocrisy, like all other bane- 
ful habits, accumulates with steadily increasing force, 
wherever it has found an impulse. Its tendency is 
downward, — hence the momentum. Its elements spring 
from the rust of some virtues, one of which is a desire 
to stand well before men ; a desire laudable under due 
control, but, like many other good things, becoming 
poisonous by its misuse. It is only a sin, after all ; but 
so much is sincerity loved, and insincerity hated, that 
the world is, perhaps, more excited with anger on its 
manifestation, than by the exhibition of any other bad 
human passions. As we should endeavour by timely 
advice to correct the evil tendencies of our kind, so, 
a word in season may be of some little benefit to the 
hypocrite. The hypocrite is the greatest victim to 
his own hypocrisy ; he is perpetually under a veil, 
which, though it may hide his detailed blemishes, allows 
his shape to be seen under the drapery, and while 
doing this, obscures his own vision. Let him be assured 
of this fact ; he is known more familiarly than he thinks : 
not that- every one can give an analytical explanation 
of their appreciation ; but there is something in him 



23 

that seizes every one's notions, actually and ener- 
getically alive to his prejudice. And more than this. 
Assuming that we cannot give a palpable shape to 
our sum of a man's character, the suspicion, the doubt, 
that attaches to the mere hypocrite is clearly injurious to 
his social relationships ; and yet more, — if there is only 
one among his circle that has taken his full measure, 
and knows him through, it will be strange indeed if 
that fact does not produce some active depreciation, 
some mischievous results. His work is harder too ; he 
must be always on the alert, always clad in armour, 
lest even "a pigmy's straw" should pierce him, and 
all his dealings with his fellow-man must be begun 
with the exchanges against him. 



Manner without or contrary to matter is hypocrisy. 
Few pretend to be worse than they are ; and yet there 
are some, nevertheless, who boast of vices their physical 
powers or their opportunities prevent them from com- 
mitting. Such men revel in the mire of falsehood, 
while they wallow in imaginary crimes, and are in 
effect guilty of the offences of both categories. But 






24 

the prevailing weakness is the desire to seem better 
than the truth : — ■ 

" Out on thy seeming— You seem to be as Dian in her orb." 

This "seeming" is the humility aped by pride; this 
manner is as the bloom upon the apples of Sodom, 
with the bitter and biting dust within ; it is as the 
lurid and deluding light of the mirage ; as a dreamy 
fabric ; as a brilliant, fleeting vision. It not only does 
not comport with the matter, but it goes further,- — it 
belies it; it professes and is not, it promises and gives 
not ; it refuses its aid, it goes further, — it digs a pitfall ; it 
refuses the balm, it goes further, — it administers poison. 



There is generally actual, but not always palpable 
insincerity in the ready and perpetual indulgence in 
general truisms in their application to matters of indi- 
vidual detail. Meaningless sentiments, recognised apho- 
risms which no one gainsays, acknowledged moralities 
which are clearly indisputable, are often used . by the 
artful in argument, as well as in the ordinary affairs 
of life, in order to divert us from the matters especially 
before us. We know with the hero in the play, that 




25 



Another illustration of manner is the ill-natured ten- 
dency to ridicule, which is a common fault in society : in 
a crowd it spreads like an epidemic. One of its phases 
is the galling and intelligible sneer. Sneering is stated 
to be the death of many a good resolve, and requires 
some preseuce of mind to baffle it. 

" Would you disarm the jeerer of his jest ? 
Frown not, but laugh in concert with the rest." 



"all men should be honest," and all men should be [fl 

"what they seem." This the disputants on both sides |: 

will admit, though one may urge it strongly ; but the l 

question may require a different solution if we demand, — jj 
" Are you, in this particular transaction, honest or what 
you seem ? " 



As a rule, I object to references to general maxims 
in our accustomed associations. They sometimes remind 
me of the noisy gurgling of a half-empty, narrow-necked 
bottle. The less there is in a man's soul, the narrower 
his mind, the more contracted his notions, so is he 
generally louder and more vaunting in an inverse ratio 
with the contents of his small mental capacity. 



2G 

The sneerer has not always the best of it. The proud 
lion said to the gnat, " Avaunt, thou paltry, contemptible 
insect ; " but the gnat reaped an ample revenge upon 
the forest monarch by his capers in the haughty beast's 
ears and nose : — so, as by just conclusions, supercilious 
sneers and inflated offensiveness of manner fiud their 
punishment some time or other through the instru- 
mentality of the smallest of their victims. 

Sensitive people are sometimes impeded in the exercise 
of principles they know to be just, and in the desire 
to accomplish things they know to be right, by the 
withering influence of ridicule, by the blighting effects 
of a sneer, a shrug, or some other indication of derision 
or contempt. These are sharp arrows, and are fre- 
quently shot from bows at .a venture ; but no one 
can be much in society without observing that they 
are sometimes sent forth by ungentle hands, having 
been suggested by ungeuial hearts. Now, I speak not 
to horses and mules who have no understanding ; these 
hints are not intended for the self-dependent marauder 
upon the calms and comforts of social life ; but for 
men whom we may charitably suppose to be, at least 







27 

occasionally, influenced by a word in season. These 
lines are written for the perusal of those who will take the 
trouble to read and to weigh their import and signifi- 
cation ; and especially are they commended ' to the 
consideration of those among them who have fallen 
into the indulgence of habitual sneering. Perhaps this 
very paragraph may arouse the supercilious curl of 
some ; perhaps hypercriticisra may sharpen its barbs, 
and prepare itself for an attack. Pause, my good 
cynic, ere you revel in a thought, which, upon better 
reflection, you may wish to recal. We are all integral 
members of the social body, each with a mission to 
fulfil : if the humble daisy but deck the field, even 
to be trodden upon by the thoughtless, surely it fills its 
own place, and accomplishes, according to its measure, 
the purpose for which it was sent,— as much as have 
those aggregations of floral beauty at the horticultural 
fete, where you have recently luxuriated in ecstasy, 
and the smallest petal of which, with all your talents, 
you could not create. 



There is good in every thing ; and it would be well 
to hesitate ere you cast aside the lesson I would have 



4U^ 



28 



you learn ; that is, to beware of the dangerous and mis- 
chievous tendency of "the scoffer's logic," ridicule. It 
is no answer to say that men of solid morals and clear 
minds may suffer these things to pass by them as the 
idle wind which they regard not ; for it should be 
remembered in our judgment of others, that men are 
compound beings, some having more impassioned tem- 
peraments, or being more thin-skinned, or feeling those 
little assaults more deeply than others. It is an old 
story of Anaximandcr, who was told that the boys laughed 
at his singing; — "Oh, then," said he, "I must learn 
to sing better;" and when & friend spoke detracting^ 
of him, " I must learn," he said, " to live better, for I 

) am sure he had some reason for what he said." But 

all are not of this impress, — and it is not to suggest 

l a passive resistance to ridicule that I urge this, but to 

warn the cynic that while irony and satire, in the 
ordinary associations of life, very seldom cure or ncu- 

r 1 tralize the peculiarities he travesties, they leave stings 
behind them dipped in virulent, and lasting, and widely- 
spreading poison. Men fear ridicule more than injury ; 

! they bear a loss with complacency, but a manifestation 

of contempt arouses their' ire, and provokes their worst 




29 

passions. No man loves the sneerer, and the point in 
the sneer is frequently blunted by the rancour it ex- 
cites ; that becomes, to a certain extent hurtless, this 
produces a recoil. I would ask, then, is it under any 
circumstances right or expedient ? and does it not generally 
fail in the effects intended ? In debate it frequently 
takes the place of argument, and destroys the legiti- 
mate effects of accurate logic. It is unfair and un- 
generous to use it as a weapon ; for truth itself can 
scarcely withstand its attacks. Exercised on the side 
of truth, — directed against national follies, sneers and 
pasquinades- may be tolerated, for doubtless there are 
many instances of national faults and absurdities having 
been cured by well-timed caricatures and lampoons ; but 
surely truth requires not such extrinsic aid, and may 
be safely left to the issue of its own influence. 

The habitual sneerer is a bad-hearted man ; his sneer is 
simply a manifestation of the evil principle that reigns 
within, a principle, be assured, that diffuses its malevo- 
lent influence over his whole life. The sneerer, that is, 
the man whose bent is sneering, has scarcely a spark 
of benevolence within him ; his sins are not falls ; he 



30 

cannot fall who lies so low. Give me the man who 
is constantly floundering through the rash exercise of 
unguarded impulses, rather than the cold, calculating 
preter-human sneerer. A sneer, if remembered, is seldom 
thoroughly forgiven, even by the most charitable, and the 
sneerer more than any other, finds every man's hand 
against him. His end is, to be met by that which I 
look . upon as the most fearful, the most soul-thrilling 
arrow conceivable, — the laugh that mocks his calamity. 
We are told by an old author that there is nothing 
that people are more mortified to spend in vain than 
their scorn ; so let us be assured that the sneer that 
" hurtless breaks " scatters its barbed splinters into 
the sneerers heart. A popular modern writer says very 
appropriately — 

" Let not any talk of taunt and ridicule being a trivial and 
insignificant thing, unworthy of thought. It is often because the 
taunt is contemptible that it is hardest to bear. The sting of the 
adder rouses into fury the lordly lion. The tiniest insect blanches 
the colour of the loveliest flower, and causes it to hang its pining 



A few lines for a group which suggests ample illus- 
tration of the matter of manner : it composes a family 
with different principles, having a strong family likeness, 



but inheriting various degrees of good and evil. The 
laugh, simply, may be the progenitor, or to change the 
figure, the root of all : the off-shoots are, the smile, the 
grin, the sneer, the guffaw, the titter, the giggle, the 
simper : their attributes and incidents are derision, 
ridicule, littleness of mind, or the exhibition simply of good 
humour. Each of these indications tells a story, and is 
highly suggestive and full of meaning. I have already tried 
the reader's patience upon some of them, and would now 
rather give attention to the smile, as leaving upon 
our hearts the sweetest and most agreeable impression. 
A smile like a blush indicates a mysterious connexion 
between mind and body, between matter and spirit. 
The terminations of the facial nerves are expanded 
by the instantaneous effect of mental emotions, and 
induce a larger channel for the flow of blood. Hence 
the crimson tinge that manifests so much. A word, 
a look, a pause, will mantle the cheek ; and as quiet 
an impulse will awaken a smile. 

The smile of love. I envy not the man whose 
whole soul has not been in raptures, when for him 
a countenance has been lighted up with the angelic 



32 

radiance, and whose whole purposes and hopes have 
not been elevated by it, so to speak, to the seventh 
heaven. There are, too, the encouraging and sustaining 
smiles of confidence, and of approbation. And if ever 
this world has a hue of heaven-fraught beauty floating 
upon its surface, it surely is when the smile of innocence 
beams, as it were, from the reflex, of seraphic love; 
such a smile as a mother feels through her inmost heart, 
when her little one echoes by a look the tenderness 
of a mother's affection. 

Laughter is a nervous emotion, and, like blushing, 
portends also the mental and corporeal kinship I have 
already mentioned. A pleasant story, a good joke, or a 
piece of merry mischief, provokes a contortion of counte- 
nance, a succession of cachinnations, and sometimes creates 
so powerful an impression, as to render the laugher almost 
powerless. I like a good laugh. By the modern rules 
of etiquette we are almost forbidden to laugh, and there- 
fore, one source of real and healthful enjoyment is 
obstructed. And how risible we are apt to become 
while listening to a good laugher. It is true to a 
proverb ; and it may indicate the sympathy that exists 



T 



33 

among our kind, and that would expand, if it were 
not, alas, too frequently stunted by the usages of society, 
Martial tells us to "laugh if we are wise;" and what 
more captivating in its right time and place, than a 
manifestation of intelligent and irrepressible mirth ; what 
sweeter than the merry laugh of an interesting aud 
light-hearted girl ; or the ingenuous, and unconfined, aud 
intelligible burst of a fiue mauly boy. Forgive, me, — 
but though I am gravity intensified, and would frown 
if I could, — yet if he be honest, open, sincere and 
generous, I can pardon him all his mischievous tricks, 
if he only laughs well while he is about them. Never 
mind my pigtail, or the chalk on my back, or the 
black on my nose, — though the young villain laughs 
before me aud behind me, I shall really absolve him, 
if only he docs so to the right tuue. 



Sir Richard Steele says, " In order to look into any 
person's temper, I generally make my first observations 
upon his laugh, whether he is easily moved, and what 
are the passages which throw him into that agreeable 
kind of convulsion. People are never so much unguarded 
as when they are pleased, and laughter being a visible 



: 



34 



symptom of some inward satisfaction, it is then, if ever, 
we may believe the face." And Carlyle says, — "The 
man who cannot laugh is only fit for treasons, stratagems 
and spoils." Another author says, " Let us hear a 
man laugh, and we can decipher him at once, and tell 
how his heart beats ; " and Lavater warns us when 
he says, " Shun that man that never laughs, who dislikes 
music, or the glad face of a child ; " and a wiser man 
than either tells us with authority, — "There is a time 
to laugh." Descending from Solomon to Pope, who 
can help feeling the truth of these words of the latter 
writer : — " Let an ambassador speak the best sense in 
the world, aud deport himself in the most graceful 
manner before a prince, yet if the tail of his shirt 
happen— as I have known it happen to a very wise 
|L man — to hang out beliind, more people will laugh at 

] that than attend to the other." Why, I do think I 

should laugh if such an incident were to occur at my 
own funeral. Surely, among other indications of cha- 
racter, man may be well said to be a laughing animal. 
Laughing, however, is not always rejoicing, not always 
gladsome. There is the hysteric laugh, which, I confess, 
alarms and terrifies me. What a sad travestie it is; 



35 

and as it is not in character, how the sorrowful laugher 
suffers. There is such a thing as laughing at the wicked. 
-"The righteous,'' says the Psalmist, "shall fear, and shall 
laugh at the man who loved evil more than good," and (| 

that " made not God his strength," and we are told 
of those who "laughed their enemies to scorn, and mocked 
them." 4 

This suggests a thought upon the sardonic laugh. | 

It is a laugh which I always regard as chilling and 1 

withering in the extreme. It acquires its name from ji 

the plant, well known to botanists and physicians as j| 

the sardonius visits. Its effect on the nervous system | 

is tetanic, — the nerves of the face being most affected. 
It flashes like a meteor on the human face divine, and 
the countenance instantly relapses into a cold, blighting 
rigidity. I am never at my. ease in the presence of 
a sardonic laugher ; he appears to be one of those cold- 
blooded animals of whom we read, whose most ' appro- 
priate region is the neighbourhood of an iceberg ; and 
I feel instant relief at his departure. Cheerfulness does 
not expend itself in a hollow, cold, and heartless laugh ; 
it does not grin horribly its ghastly smiles, nor does 




36 

a grin or a peculiar cachinnation, or certain impulsive 
movements of the facial nerves, necessarily indicate 
that the heart is happier. Few visible things are more 
delusive. The general tenor of a man's life only, can 
manifest the general serenity of his soul. Give mc 
not the man who is so strictly regular, that you cannot 
find a fault, but rather one who has failings, and whose 
failings "lean to virtue's side." 

If you are glad, let me see that you " heartily rejoice." 
If you grieve, Aveep not as though you rejoiced : weep 
with tears, and rejoice with gladness. Especially let 
this be manifested when offering your congratulations 
or administering sympathy. Let the manner be an index 
of the matter ; cultivate truthfulness in both. Perfunctory 
and heartless courtesies, if not absolutely chilling, are 
very vapid. There was something generous and exem- 
plary in the telling conduct of Shobi, the son of Nahash 
of Rabbah. He " brought beds and basons and earthly 
vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched 
corn, and honey, and butter, and cheese of kine for 
David, and for the people that were with him to eat." 
And his reason for this generous and sumptuous display 



is the moral and the essence of the story, and is a 
manifestation of the heartiness we all admire : — "for they 
said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, 
in the wilderness." 

I cannot quit the subject of sneers, however, without 
touching upon another cause, somewhat akin to it, of 
heartless personal annoyance. 

How many a quiet, unobtrusive, and well-judging 
aspirant for progress, or for your good offices, has been 
stung to the quick by a short, curt, reckless answer, — 
or rather by the manner of the answer. How have 
I seen a simple youth turn to a deep vermilion at 
some rough remark of an inconsiderate father in the 
presence, perhaps, of several listeners, — and his little 
ambition chocked and laid low, because his equally little 
but natural pride was wounded. There is much to be 
said upon this. The word in season is not merely 
an apt quotation, nor a hint, nor a rebuke, nor a 
warning ; — no, — it is sometimes no more in season than 
a rose in December or a snow-flake at Midsummer. 
It is a rose, aud it is a snow-flake still : but comes 






when it is not wanted, and is out of place So, 
when we would put a friend or a dependent on his 
guard against the world, or against himself, the time, 
the opportunity, the manner, are nearly as much a part 
of the counsel as the material thing itself. 

Fashion is but one of the offshoots of manner. 
" Everything by turns but nothing long," it assumes 
the tyrannical sceptre of etiquette, and the dictatorial 
bearing of " Sir Oracle ; " and will vary its despotic 
impositions from the accepted liaisons of Ovid, and the 
questionable moralities of the Greek and Roman poets 
and philosophers, or perhaps the unquestioned profligacy 
of the court and times of Charles the 2nd, to the ascetic 
prayers and dictations of rabid puritanism. In the 17th 
century its quasi loyalty and sanctimoniousness denounced 
even the natural and spontaneous manifestation of a smile, 
so frigid, so stoical, so hard and unbending were its 
requisitions : in the 18th century it uproots all time- 
honoured, national, and sacred institutions, and madly 
rushes into the precincts of heaven, to demand even from 
thence an unhallowed obedience to its dictates. Some- 
times by stealthy steps and slow are the great changes 



39 

wrought, sometimes by a sudden recoil. When does 
fashion become vulgarity in the common and received 
meaning of the latter term ? 

Etiquette is the tyrant and the leveller of good man- 
ners. There is an etiquette in manner, and too frequently 
an obnoxious manner in etiquette. There is the same 
difference between manner and mannerism as between 
sanctity and sanctimoniousness. Some good people are 
always studying manners and practising in your presence ; 
in their conversation labouring hard to produce the finest 
words, substituting occasionally one good word for an- 
other that was much better ; and accomplishing two 
objects at once, intelligibly illustrating and manifesting 
their own acquisitions. Oh that people who cannot speak 
will be good enough to confine their operations to simply 
making themselves intelligible ! Oh that people who 
can speak will condescend to do the same ! 

Etiquette is a fastidious vacillating despot that has 
changed sides too frequently and too capriciously to be 
depended on as an unerring guide ; and as the wise man 
asked, "where is wisdom?" we would fain inquire, "where 



r T 



40 

is etiquette ? " that is, where is it as a dispenser of the 
laws of manner ? We see it sufficiently often in its 
operations in society, but from whom does it take its 
spring ? We know whether such an one is or is not 
a well-bred person, and we are possibly charmed with the 
deportment of another, but like our analysis of taste, we 
scarcely can answer why ? It would be difficult to 
separate or disengage the elements of the total which 
engages our attention, but that total nevertheless pleases 
ns. Imagine the effect of a manner built upon rules ; 
every movement, every gesture, to be the subject of 
a distinct written law. It would be to the reality 
of true inbred politeness what Frankenstein's monster was 
to the soul-filled man. The man who would be 
guided by a code in his intercourse, had better provide 
a table of laws for ready reference in all the ordinary 
appliances of life. What a lively affair it would be ! 

Yet, nevertheless, ceremony is often useful, and exer- 
cises much authority in some cases of social antagonism. 
I do not take Lord Chesterfield's views as sound : but 
it is admitted on all hands he said much that was good. 
His remarks upon ceremony have some point. 



41 

11 All ceremonies in themselves," he says, " are very 
silly things, and yet a man of the world should know 
them. They are the outworks of manners and decency, 
which would be too often broken in upon, if it were 
not for that defence which keeps the enemy at a proper 
distance. It is for that reason that I always treat fools 
and coxcombs with great ceremony ; true good breeding 
not being a sufficient barrier against them." 



If a person's manner attracts our attention, as such, 
the probabilities are that there is something radically 
wrong in its composition. Either the essence that con- 
stitutes true politeness has radiated from the heart, its 
natural home, to the surface, or there is something 
beneath the veil that requires the plated covering which 
mere manner only can give. When etiquette becomes 
obnoxious or conspicuous, or is substituted in any measure 
for truth, and genuineness, and sincerity, and goodwill, 
wc may be assured it is accompanied by emptiness of 
mind, or inappropriate diversion of principle. Excessive 
manner is the life-blood of small minds ; etiquette, as 
a substantial qualification, is the Alpha and Omega of 







42 

tuft-hunters aud speculators for gilded smiles, or for 
some other and less disinterested ends. 

Lord Brougham very characteristically repudiates agree- 
able manners as a science. A man of his altitude may 
p ■ 

| well regard manners as of inferior importance : blessed 

with the fortiter in re beyond most men, he may with- 
out criticism cast aside the lesser instincts of the mere 
outside ; but while he does so, he recognises the serious 
importance of a good manner as an indication of the 
heart being right. He says " The semblance of esteem 
or even love for every thing that approaches, and the 
taking a ready interest in whatever concerns every one, — 
these imply such an unnatural suppression of feelings, 
such an habitual restraint upon the emotions of every 
kind, such a false position of the mind at all times, as 
is most easily learned under the sway and dread of a 
despotic prince." 

This is not what I would contend for. But I would Jj[ 
urge that affability of demeanour, that readiness of mind, 
that heartiness of soul, which would dread giving pain, 
however slight, by word, gesture, or act of any kind, — 



that benevolence of spirit which is jealously susceptible of 
the feeling of others, and vibrates with quick and lively 
emotions whenever and wherever those feelings are 
touched. 

Rochefoucauld says "Nothing so much prevents our 
being natural as the desire of appearing so." Line and 
rule and compass, — laws and aphorisms, — never induced, 
in their conspicuous action, one scintilla of fine taste : 
figure and face are not the only requisites to produce the 
influence of a fair presence. Whole paragraphs of as- 
surances, whole epistles of compliments, whole volumes 
of declarations must be scattered to the winds, before 
the mighty power, the inevitable indication, of a falling 
tear, — issuing from the crystal fountain of sincerity and 
truth. How is it that two souls blend at the first 
meeting ? how is it that men become clothed in friendship's 
guise without a word, that minds are exchanged by a 
glance, that feelings are joined in an eternal affinity, ere 
yet their compass is measured or their tone tested. It 
is by the mysterious but intelligible and speaking power 
of manner, ascending like incense from the vestal fire of 
an honest heart. 



44 

. And yet there must be etiquette : there must be forms 
and ceremonies between stranger and stranger, between 
lords paramount and vassal, between parent and child ; 
in order to keep up the vis vitce of that high principle 
which in honour prefers one another. I regard these 
requisites as among the forecourts of life. A few words 
upon these important safeguards. 

I like the forecourts of life. They fence and guard 
men and institutions from the petty violeuces which 
would do them mischief, albeit they can scarcely resist 
the attacks of the determined depredator. Indeed, what 
shield, what battlements, can long shut out the combined 
operations of violence, cunning and treachery ? Unless 
men be agreed in foregoing something, unless they 
recognize some neutral ground between them, the scarps 
and counter-scarps of life are as so many morasses where 
institutions and manners slide into nothingness to make 
way for the evils that are silently floating for activity. 
The manner of official intercourse must be maintained, 
if social good is desired. There is something of awe 
in the time-honoured pictures of the old judges, with 
their amplitude of wigs, and the portly rectors with 



; r 



45 

their sometimes unintcllcctual couutenances, as they have 
hung, long before the time of the oldest beadle, in town 
halls and vestries of old market towns. As they are 
nearly all fat and weighty in their outward aspects, 
doubtless the wigs made amends for many shortcomings 
in the development of their magisterial or clerical 
functions ; 1 love the thought of them, and feel more 
loyal and patriotic when I behold them ; and so too, 
according to their measure, with the old prints of county 
members, in the parlours of ancient country inns. I 
say nothing about the little anachronisms of red coats 
and green trowsers ^ but there is something very subduing 
in their dramatic attitudes ; and, depend upon it, those 
towns and villages have thriven best where the principle 
they evolve have been most upheld. The wig in the 
forum, the gown in the pulpit, the crown for royalty, 
the mace for the hall of justice, are important in their 
influences ; but they lose that importance and that 
influence; the instant they are made the end instead of 
one of the elements of the means ; but if the pageant 
be all, if the official ceremony take the highest place, 
if the white surplice be a rock of offence, then manner 
becomes injurious. Dr. Hook adverts to the contentious 



46 

between the black and white surplices, and the intro- 
duction of flowers in a church ; and he seems to infer that 
the facts alone absurdly and unworthily caused Christian 
men to differ even to acrimony. But he seems to pass 
by the natural and actual inferences from these intro- 
ductions. The intrusion of the white surplice was not 
only borne with, but encouraged, — nay, the absence of 
that garment would be a token of reproach in some 
places; — how is it that it was a cause of offence in 
others, where men were even of the same way of 
thinking ? I answer, simply because it was the matter 
of the manner, — simply because it was a party badge, — 
because it indicated a violence upon the accustomed 
mode of worship, and a symptom of an offensive change 
of creed or discipline. If the fashion were of no moment, 
why introduce it ? and, if so, why persevere in it ? 
There was but little excuse and no justification for 
the opposition it met with in many cases, from an 
unthinking multitude : still less were our accustomed 
teachers justified in giving an adventitious importance to the 
thing it implies, unless the manner indicated the matter. 
And yet, nevertheless, the wig and the gown are, in 
their way, fences to the law ; regal and municipal state 




47 

may be a more substantial upholder of regal and mu- 
nicipal power than we are inclined to imagine. The 
civilities of the dinner-table, and other conventional, 
although probably old-fashioned, usages and etiquettes of 
social intercourse, may be the means by which, among 
other elements of union, friendships are held together : 
and who does not remember frequent instances of friendly 
intercourse being absolutely severed by the thoughtless 
breach of some fashionable or social rule. The maxim 
that "the King can do no wrong "is an illustration of such 
a barrier as that to which I have adverted. We know 
its emptiness, but we recognise its importance. Should 
the question be raised, let the minister look Qiit. The 
" forecourt " in this as in other cases, is like a belt of 
flowers, frail against desperate violence, but whose beauty 
and very frailty are the life of its strength. The suc- 
cessive rulers of the French nation have failed for the 
want of the " forecourt." They are, as to internal 
government, little more than chief commissioners of 
police, so that if misadventures, political or fiscal, should 
befal that great country, the malcontents who hunt up 
" Figaro here and Figaro there," fall at once upon the 
chief, and "there an end." In Great Britain, the 



4 



48 

incipient rebel has to graduate ere he can arrive at 
his consummation. He has to travel though various 
ranks of police subordinates up to their great head, the 
chief commissioner, each of the successive officers being 
a forecourt for his superior. Nor does it stop there. 
There are the Home . Secretary and his co-efficients to 
subdue, and the military to face, long, long before he 
can find his way to the seat of Royalty. Communications 
between the Houses of Parliament, when they differ, 
are forecourts in their way. If one resists pertinaciously, 
they each know the danger in which both are involved, 
especially during exciting times, when men's minds are 
rife with political agitation. The civilities that are ex- 
changed, the assumption of mutual respect, the delicacy 
in allusion to each other save as to "another place," 
are all characteristic. They are among the little fore- 
courts of life. Then, again, the declarations of fidelity, 
truthfulness, and sincerity, with the important addition 
sometimes of perpetuity in regard, as attested by the 
subscription of correspondents ; the assurance of " high," 
or of " distinguished consideration " verified by the sign 
manual of diplomatists on their parting with you at the 
termination of their letters, may be compared with the 



49 

exit of a friend from the portal of your garden. There 
are the combinations of floral gatherings fencing your 
home ; and, while admiring the encircling shrubberies, 
we are apt to forget that they sometimes cover the spiked 
railings by which they are supported. Yet forecourts 
and curtilages are useful adjuncts nevertheless. Long 
live conventional usages ! long may the wisdom of the 
wig flourish, and the cares of state be gilded and upheld 
by their little fripperies ! There is more in these last 
than meets the eye; and the reflecting man of right 
mind will always concede the sweet uses of social re- 
quirements, and bow, and visit, and speak, or be silent, 
if principle be not violated, when and how society wills 
it, lest he should make his brother to offend. 

Must manners necessarily be as Scylla or as Charybdis ? 
Is there not a via media ? Must a man be either a 
flatterer or a cynic ? You have no right to lift me up 
by flattery, " as the eagle does the tortoise to get some- 
thing by my fall ; " you have, on the other hand, no 
authority to offend my sensitiveness by "bluff honesty." 
"The doors of the temple of flattery are so low that 
it can only be entered by crawling ; " but it should 




50 

be remembered, too, that I cannot love the man much 
more because he storms my house that he may enter my 
chamber. Sir Walter Raleigh said, "a flatterer is a 
beast that biteth smiling ; " but I know not that I love 
bull-dog sincerity more warmly. 



Neither of these alternatives approaches that for which 
I would earnestly contend, — the evident truth of refinement 
in manners ; — that truth which is palpable, and radiates 
so tellingly, as to permeate through the hearts and the 
manners of all within its halo. 



The refinement I advert to is an indication of refine- 
ment in mind, of a high moral tone, of upright principle, 
of emotions alive to the beauties of sympathy, and to 
the excellencies of a graceful heart, and a benevolent 
soul. And it does not detract from the truth of this 
proposition to admit that all this may be simply assumed. 
Religion is no less religion because it is counterfeited. 
The assumption of the type is an involuntary tribute 
to the antitype. 



51 

And so with the assumption of friendship and other 
social virtues. There are men who make false estimates 
upon these subjects : I do not mean simply erroneous 
or inaccurate estimates ; but estimates formed upon 
wrong data. When a man comes to show you his will- 
ingness to serve you, by "incumbering you with help/' 
when you have already attained your end, he makes 
a false estimate : so, when he gives you information upon 
which he knows you have long since acted, or when he 
is auxious, solicitously anxious, that you should believe in 
his desire to serve you, and you know that his anxiety 
has never yet manifested itself to any practical purpose, — 
he makes a false estimate : so, too, when he will not 
interfere in a good cause, — but is silent and impassive 
that he may keep out of harm's way ; — so, when he 
will not (being your avowed frieud) defend you in your 
absence, for fear of giving offence, — so, when he nods, 
shrugs, sighs, coughs, or looks unutterable things, instead 
of giving vocal shape to those vulgar and dastardly 
significations, for fear of being caught in an overt and 
defined act of self-committal, although he might do 
more mischief by his contortions or his signs than words 
could ever create, at the same time believing that he 



52 



escapes the responsibility of language, — then he makes 
a false estimate. He makes a false estimate in his 
appreciation of the reception of these telegraphic signs. 
He fancies you cannot read him. Because you, too, 
are silent, your vision is set down as imperfect. Because 
you say nothing, you are supposed to have nothing to 
say. Never does such a man succeed for long. One 
of his false estimates is his measure of himself ; another 
is, his measure of you : and the great mistake of all 
is his appreciation of the end of these things. Where, 
and what is he, at last ? However simple-minded one 
man may be, another such a man as I have described 
loses caste with him ; the former may not be able to 
give an intelligible analysis for his want of affinity, for 
his actual repulsion, but the antagonism is there, though 
its demonstration be not pre 



The old verse about "'Dr. Fell" has much in it, 
and I must repeat it, at the risk of being considered 
tedious : — 



"I do not like thee, Dr. Fell, 
The reason why, I cannot tell, 
But this. I know, and know full well, 
do not like thee, Dr. Fell." 



53 

Now, all that needs be said about this is, that the man 
who utters these lines is mainly right in his conclusions, 
the only error is, perhaps, that he has not arrived by 
recognised and prescribed rules at the actual result. 

Just imagine one man communicating to another some 
little cowardly depreciations of their common neighbour, 
in the telegraphic signs I have adverted to. His look 
teems with small malevolence ; his tongue burns with 
eagerness to say something, no matter how mischievous, 
so he may speak ; his natural cautiousness suggests 
the miserable expediency of not being too outspoken ; 
and their neighbour is the victim of a star-chamber 
inquisition, without knowing what his crime is, without 
knowing that he is impeached, without being put upon 
his defence. So many volumes have been written upon 
open and secret slander, and the overt uncharitableness and. 
censoriousness of the world, that if I were inclined, I 
should think it unnecessary to say more at this time as 
to the slanderer. But what of the listener ? What of 
the receiver of the contraband calumnies ? Well, much 
has been said of him also : if there were no greedy 
recipients there would be few givers. But one aspect 



"f* 



54 

of the case appears to be forgotten by him. The man 
who shrugs, and looks, and points, and does all but 
talk, — must inevitably regard the listener as a traitor. 
He avoids the plain use of language for fear his listener 
should repeat it and betray him. There cannot, I think, 
be any other reason for his avoiding the legitimate and 
noble and recognised use of his faculties, in their plain 
and ordinary occupation, and resorting to the exercise 
of shuffling gestures, and cowardly but expressive silence 
as means of communication. Meet companions these, 
according to their mutual measure. It might be a curious 
subject of inquiry, to ascertain the exact amount of 
respect these people entertain for each other when they 
part, to go on their several ways ; and the self-com- 
placency in which they may indulge on their first meeting 
with their absent friend. 



Sincerity, 



Thou first of virtues, let no mortal leave 

Thy onward path, although the earth should gape, 

And from the gulf of hell destruction cry, 

To take dissimulation's winding way." 

Slander:— " The whispered tale 

That, like the fabling Nile, no fountain knows;— 
Fair-faced deceit, whose wily conscious eye 
Ne'er looks direct; the tongue that licks the dust, 
But, when it safely dares, as prompt to sting." 



^■sP 5 ■ -■..--"■■•"= 



55 



And Charity:— "a plant divinely nursed, 

Fed by the love from which it rose at first. 
Exuberant is the shadow it supplies. 
Its fruit ou earth, its growth above the skies." 



Among those who make false estimates, not only of 
society, but also of themselves, are the men who "suffer 
a change " by reason merely of alterations in their own 
circumstances or position, or in the circumstances or 
position of those about them. The change I refer to 
is, in a great measure, indicated in the following quaint 
but expressive lines : — 



"Are ye doin' ought weel?— are ye thriving my man? 

Be thankful to Fortune for a* that she sen's ye; 
Ye'll hae plenty o' frien's aye to offer their han', 
When ye needna their countenance,— a'body kens ye. 
A'body kens ye, 
A'body kens ye, 
When ye needna their countenance a'body kens ye. 



But wait ye a wee, till the tide takes a turn ; | 

An' awa wi' the ebb drifts the favours she sen's ye, JJ 

Cauld friendship will then leave ye lanely to mourn; 

When ye need a' their friendship, then naebody kens ye. 
Naebody kens ye, &c. 



But thinkna I mean that a' mankind are sae,— 
It's the butterfly-friends that misfortune should fear aye,- 

There are those worth the name-gude sen' there were mae, 
Wha, the caulder the blast, aye the closer draw near ye. 
Naebody kens ye," &c. 



56 

We can scarcely move in what is called the world 
without observing occasionally that cold supercilious 
politeness, that superficial affability, which is too often 
shown to the really great in soul by those who are con- 
ventionally elevated, and which, as Geoffry Haredale ex- 
pressively describes it, — " condescends to us in every 
word and deed, and keeps more aloof, the nearer they 
approach us." There are other phases of social and 
half friendly antagonism that occasionally cast their some- 
what lowering clouds upon the otherwise calm and un- 
ruffled surface. Let me offer an allegory as illustrative 
of this principle, and which may have some truth in it. 

He is a quiet, sensible, mild-spoken, rather free, and 
friendly young man. He is indeed affable, and evidently 
anxious to stand well with me and my family. His 
age may be twenty-six or twenty-eight. He has been 
studying for the church, has had a short time at Cam- 
bridge and attained degrees, evidencing his talent and 
perseverance. But he has passed that now, and has 
obtained, for his reward, a small curacy, with much labour 
in the parish schools, where, having a rector who is not 
too partial to work, he has his days, and almost his 



57 

nights filled with doubts and anxieties to overflowing. 
Alas ! he can scarcely keep his neat black exterior in 
good condition, before his new habiliments are ordered, 
and he is obliged to subscribe to local institutions out 
of his penury. We like him, and are always pleased 
when he can give us an hour or two from his wearying 
and sometimes heart-sickening employments. He is oc- 
casionally seen to smile and look thoughtful, whenever 
any of us incautiously mentions the hope of preferment ; 
but he is never known to express a desire for it. Hence 
we like him the better, and we wish, vain and unlikely 
though it is, that he may one day be a bishop. 



His rector is at length bilious, and, if not unfit, at least 
b unwilling to preach twice or three times every Sunday, 
and our young clerical friend preaches for him. At first 
the sermons are winning, elegant, persuasive ; they do 
not exactly bring tears to our eyes, but they inevitably 
lay hold of our hearts. We know that what he says 

iis true, and our pride values the discovery, which while 
it improves our own self-complacency, raises him in 
our estimation. 




Preferment at length comes. Talent is not always 
hidden under a bushel. He is nominated to a moderate 
living in the country a long way off, and under the 
eye, or within the immediate observation, of a great 
Statesman. He leaves us with tears, and we lose him 
with sorrow unfeigned. He expresses to us his lasting 
gratitude for what we regard as very insignificant ser- 
vices. But he has gone; and we lose, sight of him; 
and for the first year or so, we have from him some 
very kind and friendly letters. 

Six years afterwards, he has become a bishop. I saw 
him, for the first time since he left my house, on the 
platform of a railway station. I was told he was there, 
and I sought him. He was still tall and thin, and I 
scarcely thought that his hat and dress became him as 
to his exterior. However, there he was, and I ventured 
to accost His Lordship. To my surprise and mortifi- 
cation, although he knew me, and did not even affect 
to forget me, I was met by a cold and ceremonious 
salutation. I knew he was now my superior, and I could 
not charge myself with undue familiarity. Indeed, it is 
not in my nature. He was the man I once knew so 



T 



59 

well, and loved so much, bat, apparently, how changed ! 
We were detained waiting for the train ; and, during 
the interval, we were all marching and countermarching 
up and down the platform : but he took no further notice 
of me. I went to my place in a first-class carriage, and 
he presently looked in, apparently intending to take his 
place there too ; but he did not. He thanked the guard 
very politely, and said he would go into the next car- 
riage, which he did. 

I could have sighed ; and I own that I wished he 
had not been made a bishop. Is it necessary, when 
by our talents and the aid of circumstances, and move 
onward and upward, and obtain, for instance, a bishop's 
hat, that we should forget the sacred claims of friend- 
ship ? Does it militate against a man's spiritual or 
administrative usefulness to manifest symptoms of the best 
emotions of the human heart ? Does the professional 
humility imbibed by the graduate in clerical distinctions 
necessarily presuppose social pride as a natural result ? 
And is it seldom that while the hierarchy in the es- 
tablished church are taught to love their inferiors with 
preceptive love, broad as their sphere of legal usefulness, 



I 



60 

they forget at the same time the additional impulses that 
moved their great Head towards the beloved disciple ? 
Alas ! I fear that this is not an uncommon case ; too fre- 
quently do men forget that the emotions of human friend- 
ship add grace and dignity, and give force and power, to 
the most elevated positions in this world's life, whether 
in the church or in any other of the learned professions ; 
and that the channel especially of human affections, broad 
and deep as it is, clear, and lucid, and transparent, may 
be made a highway for the conversion and edification 
of the soul. But I introduce this episode rather for 
the illustration of a principle indicated in a compara- 
tively trifling incident. There was deep matter in the 
manner of the greeting to which I have adverted. It 
was simply a symptom. And yet I have some reason 
to believe and to hope that the cloud was a transient 
one. Bishops and statesmen are but men ; and reflection 
and a right direction of mind will tend to the improve- 
ment of all. 

A reference to the church suggests a few words as 
to the enunciation that meets us there at least once 
or twice a week. The manner of reading a sermon, 



61 

or the services, or indeed almost any passage in any 
work, not only sometimes materially alters the sense 
intended by the author ; but what is here more to my 
purpose, it affects the spirit by which the listener is 
actuated. A comma in a wrong place, a staccato syllable, 
a bated breath, or a forte accompauiment, volubility in 
the pathos, a small voice in the exordium or the argu- 
ment, abruptness, awkwardness, or peculiarity of any 
kind, all these very seriously affect the construction and 
the appreciation of the context. I am not about to 
venture a lecture upon rhetoric, or upon mere enun- 
ciation or gesture ; the grammars and the encyclopedias 
will do this with more judgment and effect; but it must- 
be admitted that we are all made up of such human 
stuff, are so much under the dominion of eyes and ears, 
that the manner in which a man addresses us, in the 
pulpit, or on the stage or on the platform, is the vehicle 
by which he travels to our hearts. I know I have 
been much influenced in my tone of mind at church 
according to the manner of the reader and the preacher, 
and have, oh, how frequently, longed for the end with 
zealous impatience, and culpable cynicism. I am not 
advocating or even defending this quasi religion ; for 



62 

it is clearly — shall I say inexcusable ? There is the 
fact, and if we must correct our tendencies to hyper- 
criticism in places of worship, is there any harm in just 
very gently suggesting to both reader and preacher, 
that they should look to the matter too. 



I do not desire to be rocked in my cradle " by the 
slippered foot of a soft -speaking minister to all delicate 
ditties;" but I think I should not willingly choose Briareus 
to visit me with his well-hammered eloquence, or Boan- 
erges to pound in his way unpleasant truths in my ear. 
It may be rejoined, and fairly rejoined too, that it is 
monstrous to suppose a culprit (and wo are. all culprits) 
should be permitted fastidiously to choose his own numbers 
for the sweet lispings, or to select the colour of the 
ink in which his accusation is to be drawn : I admit 
it, and further that it may appear to argue a very small 
amount of pious attention or sincere contrition, when 
one of the elements of either is the grammatical or the 
manner-test by which we are to weigh the precepts, 
the warnings, or the . threatenings. All this is true ; 
yet molten lead is very useful for blending cast-iron : 



. 



G3 

and it will be well to tell solemn truths in the best 
language aud in the best manner. 

The association of persons with ideas is one of the 
mysteries of mind. Given a hero, or a person of high 
degree, or a celebrity, and instantly from the mind issues 
forth a fitting shape. There seems, too, a mcetness in 
the combination, aud a reasonableness which can scarcely 
be questioned. Did ever any living man conceive of a 
Gaesar with the appearance of John Wilkes with cross 
eyes crosswise. Would Milton or Shakspeare have ever 
been ushered in to the unfailing admiration of the world, 
if their names had chauced to be Flanagan or Buggms, 
or if, with lofty and expansive and refined minds, their 
material frames had presented themselves as dumpy, 
or hoppy, or snubby, or dirty, and we knew it ? Just 
imagine a lisping or a de-aspirating or ex-aspirating 
Romeo : or Narcissus with a snuffle, or Juliet with a 
vulgar cold ; or Alexander the Great with a hawking 
grunt ; or the eye that excited the thoughts of the Danish 
prince, an incontrovertible swivel ; or a bilious-looking 
Adonis, with literally a "jaundiced eye;" or Eve at 
the fountain, the first edition of the Hottentot Venus. 



64 

Granted that all this is matter of taste, and as eloquence 
is as much in the auditor as in the speaker, so taste, 
or the want of it, is as much in the eye that perceives 
as in the subject that is perceived. Of course these 
are simply questions of measure, and whether the ex- 
amples I have suggested be apposite or not, the principle 
and the notion are the same. 

Let me offer another vagary of imagination in which 
there is some truth. I went once to confession, — only 
once. I was very devout, — indeed I was; and I was 
very sorry, — I was indeed. I tried all I could to make 
myself miserable, and to picture myself as black as dark 
Erebus, and, to a certain extent, I succeeded. What 
a wretch I felt myself; and I went in to my place 
on the stool of the penitents. It was in a private room 
of the priest ; after dinner ; yes, after; for the prandial 
fumes still hovered about the walls ; it was somewhat 
dark and sombre ; but the chamber was, as it appeared, 
by no means calculated to excite one's notions of the 
creature comforts of human life. The priest had a coarse 
countenance ; — odd, was" it not ? that I should have noticed 
it at so solemn and depressing a moment. Was it 



65 

tobacco that greeted my semi-pious olfactories ? — But 
let that pass. I commenced the gloomy catalogue of 
my crimes. Now, forgive me for my irreverence, but I felt 
like one amazed ; — the " holy " father took snuff, and 
his inhalations of the "savoury concrete" were accom- 
panied by a gush and a gurgle which alarmed and 
discomfited me, and banished all my poetry : he smelt 
of snuff, he breathed suuff, and when he spoke, his voice — 



" had an odd promiscuous tone, 

As if he talked three parts in one; 

Which made me think when he did gabble, 

I heard three labourers of Babel." 



I took my departure very soon, and rejoiced at my 
release, — sadly cut down, and improved for the worse ; 
and it was long, very long, before I regained the proper 
balance of my mind. Oh, the appropriateness of persons 
and things ! Oh, the matter of manner ! 

Let it not be supposed that I have adduced this illus- 
tration as a specimen of the class of divines to whom 
it refers. Very far from it. Who shall doubt the piety 
that reigns through the church of which the "father" I 
have pictured is a ruling member ? Christianity abounds 



6G 

in that church, notwithstanding it is so sadly shrouded 
with absurdities ; and the manner as well as the matter 
of thousands and tens of thousands of its adherents, sets 
a bright example of devotion that professors of other 
creeds would do well to follow. 

But we pass on to another phase of manner. The 
manner of men in their open appreciation of recognised 
faults is entitled to deep and serious consideration ; and 
here I would entreat the reader to lay. a gentle hand 
on mine, and readily to believe that I know how much 
easier it is to find faults even in ourselves, than to correct 
them. We are all of us well-meaning to a certain 
extent ; and being so, every one of us has had serious 
internal misgivings and self-rebukes for what we may 
have said or done, or left unsaid or undone ; — more fre- 
quently the former than the latter. Let us give each 
other credit for a similar process, as occasion shall appear 
to demand ; and let us remember, too, that imperfection 
is the chief characteristic of man's character. Perfection — 



Is not the growth of earth: 



The search is useless if you seek it there. 
'Tis an exotic of celestial birth, 
And only blossoms in celestial air." 



«£» 



67 

If this be so, let us endeavour to find some excuse for 
our friend's errors, — let us appoint some counsel by 
order of the court, to defend the prisoner, before we 
record a final verdict against him. This mode of action, 
like other processes, will manifest the inner workings 
of our minds upon the surface, — upon the manner ; and 
will teach us — " to hide the faults toe see." 

I know it is often very difficult to decide correctly ; 
for there are some ill-conditioned men with good points, 
with whom if we have not taken "sweet counsel," we 
have at least admitted them into our confidence, and 
reciprocated social privileges ; and the full measure of 
whose dark spots has not been adequately shadowed out 
until' the pressure of adverse circumstances has tried 
and weighed them, and found them wanting. It would 
seem very cruel and very worldly to desert a fallen 
friend just at the culminating point of his misfortunes. 
But even at this serious cost principle must be maintained ; 
a wrong act, and, much more, a series of wrong acts, is 
perlectly definable ; and the man who commits them 
violates the social compact against the hallowed instincts 
of friendship, — and must take the cousequences. But 



68 

our duty is to act as if we had engaged in a bad specu- 
lation ; and although we cannot and ought not to re-admit 
into our inner confidence the man whose principles are 
at length discovered to be wrong, Ave must not lightly 
regard the friendship and the communion that is, alas ! 
of the past. We ought not, if we could, recklessly 
and indifferently to cast away, as a forgotten thing, the 
sanctity of friendly intercourse ; and, to a certain extent 
too, we must take to ourselves some of the consequences 
of that intercourse. Oh, if, by the charity that hopcth 
all things, thou hast won thy brother ! What, if the 
fault is atoned for by hearty acknowledgments ; what, 
if the cloud has dispersed, if the bow appear in the 
heaven?, signifying not only weeping, but its indispens- 
able accompaniment, sunshine ? what if the lacerated 
feelings be soothed into soundness more sound than before? 
Granted that a cicatrized wound is the result ; yet an 
effort should nevertheless be made. After all, the shadows 
help with the lights to form the picture ; and. although 
we would not sin that grace may abound, yet the very 
imperfection of human nature demands our sympathy, 
for we belong to the same order. Our relative short- 
comings are not to be measured by scale; some are at 



j, 

IT 



„^JL 



GO 



zero, some at fever heat, but all point to one degree or 
another. Indeed, I agree with Professor Wilson, in the 
principle inferred from his remark, that if it were told 
him a perfect person was entering the room, — he would 
quit it directly. 



Akin to these suggestions, is the importance of a due 
manner to those who have seen better days. A difficult 
question ; for with all our charity and forbearance, many 
of those who have seen better days, have, by their own 
conduct, or by their own heedlessness, been the main 
cause of their falling upon evil times. And so, the 
thoughtful and prosperous man deserts them ; and so, 
the world concludes that the altered circumstances alone 
have caused the isolation ; and so, censure is rife, and 
proverbs are plentiful. There is a reference to the wor- 
ship of the rising sun, to the hare with many friends, 
and so forth. Now this subject should be met face 
to face. It is a perfectly natural result, that if a man 
falls iu circumstances, because he has fallen, or rather 
because his level has always been low in principle, that 
his circle of friendships (so called) should be disinte- 
grated ; but we should remember the charge to restore 



70 

such an one in the spirit of meekness; we should be 
on our guard, not to add, to the bitterness of disappoint- 
ment, of self reproach, and adversity, the chilling blight 
of unkindness of manner. A bland and meek considera- 
tion for the feelings of others is perfectly consistent with 
high and firm principle ; and it may be advanced as a 
certain truth, that the combination of both will result in 
settled conviction, and in good habits of thought perma- 
nently established. 

Kindness of manner is as the dawning sun upon a 
bleak and sterile region ; it is the life of worldly hap- 
piness. The Rev. Charles Kingsley thus writes of Sir 
Sidney Smith ; and so adduces telling evidence in support 
of our proposition. " The love and admiration which 
that truly brave and loving man won from every one, 
rich and poor, with whom he came in contact, seems 
to me to have arisen from the one fact, that without 
perhaps, having any such conscious intention, he treated 
rich and poor, his own servants and the noblemen his 
guests, alike, and alike courteously, considerately, cheer- 
fully, affectionately; so, leaving a blessing, and reaping 
a blessing, wherever he went." Who knows not the 



71 

contagion of a happy manner ? Flow we love the friend 
who seems to warm us with his presence ; and how, 
as it were, with an involuntary and irresistible impulse, 
we bend our unconscious footsteps to that place where 
haply we may meet him ! 

A man of kind heart and good bearing, shake him 
as you will, is like a. well-made kaleidoscope : you produce 
by every turn a fresh combination of beautiful and lively 
shapes and colours. 

Yes, there is an unspeakable consolation in the heart- 
beaming sympathy of the truthful, which seems in the 
very hour of trouble to "give us back our tears," with 
such earnestness, such tone, that we would rather have 
our sorrows than lose our solace. Oh, how sweet the 
gentle soothings of a friendship which proclaims its 
kindred with our hearts and our emotions without one 
uttered syllable ! 

This heaven-fraught feeling may be brought somewhat 
more iu relief by a contrast or two. 




72 

"We meet men with irascible tempers and uncompliant 
dispositions," says a modern writer} "who have been 
fighting, all their days with difficulties of their own 
raising, and rendering success impossible by their own 
ungentle ways ; while others, with much less talent, 
achieve success, fully as much by their courtesy, as by 
their ability." 



"There are some," says an old author, et who affect 
a want of affectation, and flatter themselves they are 
above flattery; they are proud of being thought ex- 
tremely humble, and would go round the world to punish 
those who thought them capable of revenge ; they are 
so satisfied of the suavity of their own temper, that 
they would quarrel with their dearest benefactor only 
for doubting it. And yet so very blind are all their 
acquaintance to their numerous qualifications and merits, 
that the possessors of them invariably discover when 
it is too late, that they have lived in the world without 
a single friend, and are about to leave it without a 
single mourner," 



73 

Again. — How is it that those whom we love, and 
who are kind to ns, find us apt, ready, persevering, to 
please, gratify, and serve them ? How is it that pupils 
can learn so cheerfully, and with such comparative ease, 
of kind preceptors ? Under them progress appears mar- 
vellous. Each day records a palpable acquisition ; every 
movement made is, by a mysterious affinity, towards 
them. The solution of this proposition I leave to the 
hearts and the understandings of all who know what 
it is to feel in their inmost souls the electric influence 
of an encouraging smile, a kind word, a bland precept, — 
and the opposite result, the prostration through a 
black look, and a meaningless and unnecessary and ill- 
conditioned rebuke. 



There are occasions in which manner may involve 
objectively perpetual weal or woe. Let us reflect upon 
the case of the fallen, and how sometimes a word in 
season may check the tendency to a lower depth or the 
fearful consequences of past turpitude. Doubtless the 
complacent reader will be disposed to limit the participle 
in italics . to its application to the weaker sex, and the 
social construction of the term would indicate the in- 



T 



74 

ference as fair. Not so. " Fallen " knows no distinction 
of sexes. There are no variations of gender in the 
term. But for the moment we will take it with its 
usual signification. Let us imagine then a degraded 
woman, 



" whose wildly fixed eyes 

Seem a heart overcharged to express; 
She weeps not, but often and deeply she sighs, 
She never complains, but her silence implies, 
The composure of settled distress." 



I am not among the number of those who indulge in 
half intelligible sentimeutalisms upon the cruelty of man, 
and the weakness of. woman; nor can I admit the irre- 
verent injustice of charging Providence with an unequal 
or unfair distribution of strength, power, privileges, and 
responsibilities. It is true that men are by nature mas- 
culine, and women feminine ; that the muscular frame 
of one is, compared with the other, as welded iron is 
to molten silver ; but the silver can buy the iron ; 
and while men have power women have toils. The word 
" fallen " is spelt alike in both cases ; the facts are, in 
the sight of God, upon a level. Sin is not more or 
less sin, by whomsoever it may be committed. Nor is 
it, I think, just, to charge society with an invidious 



•75 

distinction in its estimate of " the fallen." We are told 
by the clamourers for even-handed justice that while (Jod's 
law is equally rigid and just as to both, society spurns 
the fallen woman while the fallen man is free. First 
let us ask, what is society ? Does it mean the degraded 
portion of mankind ?— for the subject must be analysed. 
Surely not, — for there they all think alike. Does it 
mean mankind in the aggregate ? It cannot, — for 
no one can pronounce a verdict from such heterogene- 
ous and varied elements"; Society has only two divi- 
sions, the right-minded, and the wrong-minded. The 
latter division may be cast aside. What is the decree 
of the former ? What is yours, reader ? What is mine? 
Why that there is no distinction between the sexes as 
to the commission of sin. There are some of the fairer 
sex whose gentle, placid, determined, and bright glance 
is more invulnerable than an iron-plated vessel against 
the shafts of the destroyer, — a glance that can convert 
a giant into a pigmy, and make him bite the dust ; 
and, doing so, can turn the blasting prurient wilderness 
of upas-trees into a garden of all manner of leaves for 
the healing of nations. Away then with the cowardly 
and thoughtless shiftiness that would attribute woman's 



^ 



76 

wrong only to the seducer ! Away with that shallow 
excuse that would cast upon one only the sin of two ! 
While we indulge in an outcry against the social in- 
justice of casting degradation upon the woman alone, let 
us also impugn the justice of censuring only the other 
sex. Excuses like these began at the commission of the 
first sin, and they reign prevalent now : producing the 
natural consequences, the waiving of due responsibility, 
and a half and uncandid recognition of the true stale 
of the case. 

Rather let us endeavour to raise the tone of the 

female mind ; rather fortify it by teaching subjective 

self-dependence, and by promoting that high sense of 

feminine dignity, " as circumspect as Cynthia in her 

vows," that inevitable and unconquerable evidence of 

angelic disdain, which would baffle the cowering besieger, 

and make, the creature feel, in the words of the veiled 

prophet — 

" What a wretch he is." 

But this is a digression, arising, nevertheless, from the 
subject. We have to do with manner to the fallen, 
as so conventionally distinguished. 



77 

Is she to be spurned ? cast down to the edge of the 
precipice, over which the very slightest frown would 
impel her ? Oh, certainly she can never again take 
her place in the world as once she held it ; and, if 
she could, the taunts of memory aud of conscience 
would embitter her cup : but surely there is a mean 
between the highest seat and the Tophet of destruction, 
whither she might be hurled. It is not my object, nor 
would it be appropriate to enter into or to suggest 
details, — for this is not an address on behalf of the 
numerous charities for the reclamation of the lost ; but 
when the intentions are kind, there are fruitful means 
to be found for the purpose, — and if the debased creature 
be saved, oh, how much is done towards the casket 
of jewels, — how inestimable the saving of even one unit 
amid the gigantic masses by which she is surrounded ! 

"Let any person," says an American writer, "put 
the cpiestion to his soul, whether, under any circumstances, 
he can deliberately resist continued kindness ? and a 
voice of affection will answer, that good is omnipotent 
in overcoming evil. If the angry aud revengeful person 
would only govern his passions, and light the lamp of 







78 

affection in his heart, that it might stream out in his 
features and actions, he would soon discover a wide 
difference in his communion with the world. The gentle 
would no longer avoid him ; friends would not approach 
- him with a frown ; the meek would no longer meet 
him with dread ; children would no longer shrink from 
him with fear ; he would find that kindness wins all 
by its smile giving them confidence and securing their 
friendship." 

I may safely appeal to the experience of the reader, 
and ask, does not the exercise of kindness, which is 
manner intensified, produce a gratification in one's own 
heart, and give a new interest in the recipient. If 
" the heart wants something to be kind to," is not the 
kindness suggested the fruitful source of friendship and 
affection ? And do not these impulses fill the soul with 
gladness ? It is in the power of every one, no matter 
what his station, to diffuse joy around, by the affability 
of his manner, if that manner be an intelligible testimony 
to the generous warmth of his heart. There is a music 
there which produces like chords in the bosoms of others, 
and the sweet vibrations attune the soul towards the 



79 



exquisite harmony of universal love. It is not simply 
that we are kind to those we love ; the converse is 
equally forcible and true, — we love those we are kind to. 

And what a claim is there in a loveable manner ! 
There are three sisters just ripening into the settled beauty 
of established womanhood, all with nearly equal talents ; 
in circumstances as may be easily supposed of great simi- 
larity ; and all regarded as prompted by high principles, 
and well-directed minds. There is but little difference 
in their ages, and as to personal appearance really not 
much to choose among them. The eldest is sedate, with 
a small tinge of blue in her mind and manner, full of 
conversation, and that of a high order. She has evi- 
dently read much, and has a happy aptitude for imparting 
and disseminating her knowledge ; indeed she is a little 
looked up to in her circle, and is the court of appeal 
in her family. The youngest sister is almost a count- 
erpart of the eldest ; but I have discerned that among 
the many good things she says, few only seem to 
be thoroughly her own ; and yet so cleverly has she 
adapted them that she is to be esteemed for her talent 
even, in this respect ; for it evidently arises not from 



80 

a spirit of plagiarism, but from an assimilating mind, 
from an affection that catches the tint of everything it 
clings to. She too is an ornament in every little coterie 
that is happy enough to number her as one ; and I could 
love her were not her next elder sister there. But who 
can help being fascinated by the loveable nature and 
manner of the last of my three illustrations. There is 
no solitary atmosphere around her ; — old and young are 
influenced by that bright vivacity, that sweet smile, that 
evident self-abnegation, that tender and solicitous con- 
sideration for the feelings of others ; that power of 
transmutation, so to speak, by which the cares of life 
are denuded of their sting, and the joys of life imbibe 
a fresh bloom, if her influence be brought to bear upon 
their respective destinies. And her loveableness takes 
its spring from the heart. What Sterne calls " the small 
sweet courtesies of life " are, with her, in full and active 
operation ; but they are nevertheless inevitable indications 
of a deeply-seated power which, directs her own doings 
with others, and lends enchantment to her associations. 
A loveable manner is a lever of great might with all 
who are fortunate and happy enough to feel its warmth. 
It takes the place of larger virtues and more useful 






81 

abilities : the riches of the mind have a strong rival 
in its presence ; and if I were selected to choose one 
or other of the two possessions, high ability or a loveable 
manner, I think I should, like Gamck with Tragedy 
and Comedy, feel myself in a straight between the two. 

There is matter in the passing tear, in the intelligible 
communion of a feeling heart. If we can give nothing 
else to yon poor sufferer, we can at least give him 
one tear of sympathy, or one soothing word ; and oh, 
how it enriches him, how it fans the dying embers of 
hope, as by the gentle breath of the fragrant zephyr ! 
Th'.s is indeed the charity which twice blesses. But 
a frown, or a token of indifference, — and how the afflicted 
oue droops, as the ripening corn bends beneath the 
northern blast. One kind smile penetrating his soul 
through the channel of his tears, is as the sunshine 
piercing through the morning mist. 

Patience and forbearance are sometimes noble illus- 
trations of the matter of manner. 

It is kind to wait on people's dulness, to soften their 



=%— 




asperities, to temper with a dolce touch, the staccato 
and forte movements of others. Dr. Watts could without 
effort or affectation, lower his mind and bend himself to 
the capacities of children, so that there arose a direct 
-avenue of communion between their spirits. And there 
was One, who, albeit the weightier matters of the law 
and the highest rhetoric of science were as nothing to 
Him, could descend and be delighted as the teacher 
of babes and the companion of children. 

Real and active friendship, practical service, is as 
the ocean which we admire, and at which we some- 
times marvel ; — kindness of manner, pervading a man's 
life, is as the sweet streamlet that borders and refreshes 
the meadow. We wonder at the former, we love the 
latter. We seek the sea for a great change ; but we 
linger on the gently sloping banks of the brook, and 
we listen to its sweet and suggestive purl which tells 
us of the friends we love, and of the sweet, moments 
" rich in blessing," of a varied life, calling us back from 
the pressure of the care that embitters to the contem- 
plation' of the bounties which are ever hovering over 
the most tried. 



83 

Civil offices may be trivial : they do not necessarily 
cost much of time, labour, or money ; and we regard 
them with satisfaction, and perhaps no more ; but a 
man exhibits a much higher phase of humanity, who 
lays himself out to perform civil offices as the rule 
of his life ; who delights in rendering service ; who not 
only tells you the way, but troubles himself to explain ; 
who not only throws a passing glauce at your trials, 
but soothingly endeavours to avert them, in the spirit 
of Him who taught us to bear one another's burdens. 
This is the manner that is especially indicative of the 
matter. Mere manner may be simply the covering of 
snow, an extraneous garment that hides we know not 
what ; the courteous manner that is matter is as the 
dew that nourishes, and invigorates, and enriches, and 
delights. 

A good listener can exemplify the matter of manner 
as expressively as any willing holocaust ; and there 
are, perhaps, few who are ready to sacrifice themselves 
adequately in this respect. To listen to the artless tales 
and conjectures of infantine innocence is a large means of 
heartfelt enjoyment. Dr. Watts, to whom I have already 



4=* 



84 

alluded, is known to have been an amiable instance of self- 
negation among children ; and I can scarcely designate it 
by this term either, for he drew from his converse with 
the little prattlers much practical delight, which he almost 
invariably reciprocated. How the heart yearns to the 
little ones, who, unable to regard the gulf that exists 
between the ages, seem eager to be with, and to afford, 
according to their minute measure, some gratification 
to the old man who kindly notices them. A tale of 
ordinary sorrow, the incidents of which we may ourselves 
have experienced, may be hearkened to in such a manner, 
as may, by the very process, be the means of affording 
comfort and alleviation ; and even a prosy man may 
be borne with by the kind-hearted, — in such a way 
as to afford sufficient conscious delight to the self-immo- 
lated, so as to be its own reward. - The saying, " a word 
in season," is very appropriate; it does not mean a 
page, a lecture, or a volume ; it would seem to indicate 
that the occasional and effectual interposition of a solitary 
word of comfort in the hour of " loquacious grief," or 
of advice in the course of garrulous self-complacency 
are the balm aud the styptic, which contribute very much 
to the well-being of social life. . I mean by a "good" 



85 

listener, a man who will not only bear and forbear 
but will also, so far as he finds fair opportunity, re- 
ciprocate by the exchange of minds ; for as reciprocity 
is the very life of conversation, so the man who does 
not, when he may, contribute to its proper force, does 
not faithfully fulfil his part. 



What is the depth of that gulf that yawns between 
the simply rich and the simply poor ? What its width ? 
Its length appears to extend through the gorges of society, 
through the ups and downs of life, and to present itself 
most frowningly wherever and whenever the poor man 
attempts to cross it. There are two banks to that gulf, 
and it seems fair to examine them separately. On the 
farther side is the region of Golcontla, and the lofty- 
looking person standing there has acquired some of its 
possessions, by means sufficiently equitable as the world 
goes, and he is now luxuriating in the troublesome 
comfort the consummation of his heartiest and most 
enduring wishes has produced. Ou this bank is the 
poor man who set out in life with him upon level ground. 
Dives is nettled at the glances thrown at him from 



eA^ 5 ^ 



(I 



86 

time to time; if his looks could be interpreted, they 
would appear to say, 

" Thou troubl'st me!" 

and the recollection of the means by which he obtained 
his present exaltation, of the associates he has felt himself 
called upon to abandon, one by one, as he ascended each 
successive round of fortune's ladder, and the conviction 
that eyes are still upon him which saw him at its foot, 
somewhat embarrass him and become the worm in his 
gourd. What then ? He would probably lift up his 
old associate if he could ; and then conjectures will 
haunt him that retrospects will be revived, that the 
world that knows him only as he is, will be likely by 
juxtaposition with the subject of his thoughts to find 
out what he was, and imagining much more, would 
regard him as a parvenu, a mushroom, an intruder, 
and so cut clown his caste, and prejudice his social power. 
While self-made men too frequently forget themselves 
when on fortune's topmost round, and too often forget 
their kith and kin whose lot was not cast so high, — 
it is a fact too that the less fortunate sometimes may 
fairly attribute their reverses, and the absence of a 
helping hand, to their wonted and culpable garrulity 



^=^^-^A, 



87 



and their want of discretion. They forget that in these 
as in other matters, by-gones should be by-gones. Hence 
the difficulty in fording the gulf, and attaining the other 
side : doubtless the man who is there has exercised 
during his advance discretion and watchfulness ; is it 
too much to ask his less fortunate brother to try the 
effect of these two principles ? There must be two 
parts to the compact ; the recipient is under some en- 
gagements equally with the donor ; but it is too often 
seen that if men cannot reach the high level of their 
quondam compeers, they endeavour to produce an equality 
by lowering the mountain instead of filling up the valley. 
And yet, all things being favourable, how cheering is 
it to witness the kind and soothing and encouraging 
help, given by fortune's favorite to him whose life has 
been darkened by the clouds of "ne'er do weel " 
smugglings. The " overflowings of humanity " thus 
pictured are among the sweetest scenes upon life's turbid 
currents. A mannerly man "lifteth the poor out of 
the mire ; " an " unmannerly Christian " is a contra- 
diction in terms. 

The manner between servants and principals, is one 



88 

of those substantial influences that can almost mar or 
make the happiness of domestic life. Hovy very much 
depends upon the bland yet firm demeanour of a talented 
master or mistress ; how much too upon the respectful 
attention of a domestic. I think that much of the dis- 
quietude of which we hear, in reference to discipline aud 
servitude, is attributable to the want of consideration as 
much on the part of domestic rulers as domestic ser- 
vitors. The quiet unobtrusive neat order of a servant 
will frequently give promise that the reigning powers 
in the establishment are equal to their day : and on the 
other hand show me a mild intelligent lady, the mistress 
of a household, and I shall be able as frequently to demon- 
strate the good conduct of the maid. Respect is one 
of the elements of good service, and respect cannot be 
rendered where it is thought to be undeserved: — mild 
and firm rule is equally an ingredient in the efficient 
government of a household. To rule others well, it is 
clear that we must begin with ourselves ; for cheerful- 
ness in obedience is as much a duty as obedience itself: 
and cheerfulness is very much fostered if the serf looks 
up to and esteems the lord In these as in all other 
feats to be : '" nnplished* — the world is not to be taken 



"T 



89 

by storm or wholesale, the units form the mass ; "sands 
form the mountain, moments make the year." Make it 
a principle if possible never to leave any man with a 
feeling of rancour against you : make every man a friend. 
Of course, following up the principle of this essay, it 
must be done in sincerity and truthfulness ; not simply 
by the exterior, but by the intelligible eloquence that 
issues from the heart. If a young man begins what 
is called life upon this basis, and pursues the principle 
steadily and persevcringly, just imagine the large circle 
of friends that in a few years must be about him. to 
raise him if depressed, to cheer him if sad, to con- 
gratulate him if prosperous, and even to conduce to that 
prosperity. I have said his process must be truthful ; 
aye, truthful throughout ; for nothing is more transpa- 
rent than the mere manner of a man whose heart and 
spirit do not accord with it. A man, who acts simply 
upon his manner, finds at the end that he has been 
throughout forming a wrong judgment of the world, of 
himself, and of the consequences. Men's characters are 
made up and appreciated rather by the measure of their 
ordinary dealings than by isolated brilliant exploits. We 
heard of great victories in the Crimean war achieved 






90 

with singular success by Generals who, through them, 
became the idols of the day. The day only, alas! for 
their military talents and their genius for command were 
exotics not indigenous plants. They did not serve in 
all hours of need. What then ? They were not great 
generals. So in common, life ; so in ordinary transac- 
tions ; so in little matters. The sum of a man's character 
is to be estimated not by great achievements, not by 
meteor-like actions but by his general grain, by the 
manner in which he habitually thinks and acts. Try to 
be trusted in all matters, of course worthily. Let the 
confidence it implies increase with the expansion of your 
years. The man who does this, and does it judiciously, 
is he of all others who may be deemed "the noblest 
work of God." In the smallest transactions let every 
one feel he is safe with you. Here, more than in any 
position of life, practise self-denial ; always be disposed 
to give the verdict against yourself. In matters of doubt, 
admire justice, but be generous; bear all the . fractions 
that tell against you ; nobly and silently yield those 
that seem to be yours. Do this upon principle. Bar- 
gain-driving, even with the fates in a holy cause like this, 
is worse than contemptible. And remember what a rich 



r 



JL 



91 

harvest of satisfaction is given to the man who practises 
right theories. If this be your heart, it is your practice ; 
if your practice, be assured it will be your manner. Oh, 
what matter there is in a manner like this! Without 
your knowing the mode of operation, ■ without under- 
standing how it is that the seed fructifies, somehow or 
other it increases the love of those about you, and even 
the most cross-grained among them, who is ready to 
fasten his talons upon all, will pause when he approaches 
you, and will be subdued. Of such intense power is 
that generous loving-kindness which is so sound and 
well-grounded as to manifest itself in one's daily walk. 
Fractions are but a poor and pitiful consideration in 
the abstract, but there is more in the principle I advert 
to than the thoughtless would imagine. The man who 
is accustomed to decide against himself in small matters 
is one who is likely to treat all things generously ; and 
I believe he can educate himself in the practice of self- 
denial with a force which graduates and intensifies by 
its exercise It is not so simply upon the dry principle 
of honour, — because it is right : but because he loves 
it. Many men do good things shabbily ; and the manner 
of doing them materially derogates from their effect and 



92 

usefulness. Liberal men scorn to do things by halves: 
they. apply their principle to all their operations, material 
and trivial, not measuring their individual application, 
but because they are " to the manner born." 

The appropriateness of manner, in reference to time 
and facts, is suggested by the allusion to the mode of 
doing things. Gaiety with the sad, and lugubriousness 
on a bridal morn, are both out of place. Who would 
indulge in a dirge while the merry marriage-bells are 
ringing ? or attempt a dance to the measured tones 
of the Requiem ? We know the value of the foxglove, 
the camomile, and the poppy, but there is a charm in 
the early cowslip or the gentle violet not to be found 
in them. Sunshine is beautiful, ' but we should not 
Avelcome it at midnight ; and a gloomy summer's day 
fills us with sadness, without indicating the salutary 
usefulness of winter. Shall I with lengthened visage 
and measured notes in a subduing minor key, con- 
gratulate my friend on his acceptance by the idol of 
his heart, or in the short staccato music of a triumphant 
paean condole with him on the loss of his goodly argosies ? 
Yet this is manner ; and there are many good men, 



93 

impenetrating and impenetrable, who fail to fulfil their 
mission, because they know not the inestimable value 
of manner. All are not gifted alike. Some men bathe 
in science, others are steeped in the sweets of literature ; 
some shine in conversation, some in composition, some 
shine not at all. Yet the man of humble talents, if 
he intrude not, is borne with, fills his place in the « 

social compact, and will pass current in his day ; and 
the mau of extended mind and large acquirements is 
only borne with, it may be, notwithstanding possibly 
his assumption. The modest man was told " to go up 
higher," and the intruder to take the lowest place, — 
and we do not learn that they differed in talent. 

There is the manner of our dealings with those who 
labour for us. This manner, denounced by the Romish 
Church as a mortal sin, is a crying evil in this country, 
and we know it. Poets have issued soul-stirring lays, 
and didactic writers have cried aloud against, it ; and 
to our shame be it said, oppression still raises its baleful 
head over the poor artist, the poor sempstress, and 
others to whom the veriest trifle in compensation, and 
the remotest shade of a smile are life, encouragement, 



94 

and hope. This manner is the worm in our national 
gourd ; the poison which steals through the veins, and 
withers the heart of English mercantile associations. Let 
every one of us take heed to this, and endeavour not 
unduly to cheapen, but fairly to remunerate the man 
and the woman who labour for us, and whose labour 
is 'their sole possession. "Woe unto him that buildeth 
his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong ; 
that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and 
giveth him not for his work ; that saith, I will build 
me a wide house, and large chambers, and cutteth him 
out windows, and it is ceiled with cedar and painted 
with vermilion. Shalt thou reign because thou clothest 
thyself with cedar?" — "Thiue eyes and thine heart are 
not but for thy covetousness, aud for to shed innocent 
blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it." 
" He shall be buried with the burial of an ass." " They 
shall not lament for him." "I spake unto thee in thy 
prosperity, and thou saidst, I will not hear ; this hath 
been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not 
my voice. The wind shall eat up all thy pastors and 
thy lovers shall go into captivity ; surely then shalt thou 
be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness." 



95 

Every illustration I have ventured to offer teems with 
the actual vitality of manner, for, as already urged, that 
is the object of this essay ; but it must be remembered 
that I. have kept it steadily in its own place. Manner, 
nevertheless, has its limits ; and both head and heart 
must coalesce to define its measure : one grand mistake 
committed by mankind in all grades of life, everywhere, 
and in all circumstances, is studying manner too much, 
instead of educating the heart and the life, as a well- 
cultivated garden for the fructification of adequate fruits. 
They suffer thorns to grow instead of wheat, and ex- 
pect figs from thistles. I say "studying manner too 
much," because men sometimes give it more weight, more 
importance, than the matter from which it springs. If 
the outward guise of a man be a faithful index of his 
principles and his emotions, sincerity and truth and kind- 
ness of heart will manifest themselves intelligibly in the 
manly expression of a frank manner and an open and 
beaming countenance. A man of another mind will con- 
strue the apostolical injunction to be all things to all men, 
in a sense totally different from that intended in the con- 
text. If a man be overtaken by sorrow, can he not almost 
always feel, if not discern, the wide wide difference between 



96 

the empty consolations of a babbling profession and the 
telling sympathies of sincerity and love ? If a man laughs, 
how easy to recognise the wide gulf there is between 
the heartiness of that laugh "that from reason flows 
and is of love the food," and that "laughter of the fool " 
which is "as the crackling of thorns under a pot." True 
manner as we would have it, is an indicator of the truth, 
and, as such, ends where illustration and analysis begin. 
Where these are in operation, manner is merely an echo 
and a counterfeit, a covering only, and like the verdure 
of the sterile rock can be dispersed by the first glow 
of a summer wind. 

Manner is frequently adventitious, and almost entirely 
foreign to the matter it clothes. Its existence is then 
more in our appreciation of it than in the thing itself. 
It presents different aspects or manners to different men, 
and to the same man at different times. The splendours 
of Garrick's household, and which he loved so much 
to display, were those, as he himself was told, which 
tended to make a death-bed terrible ; and Beckford in 
his thrilling work, Vatbek, punishes his heroes with 
the satiety of those things which they loved and were 



97 

devoted to on earth. With some, the yelliugs and war 
whoops of the wild Indians and the dead staccato notes 
beaten upon tuneless instruments are seraphic music ; 
with others, the sweet and thrilling pulsations of "the 
living lyre," awakened to ecstacy, fall flat and toneless 
upon the ear, and meet no response in the heart. To 
the heavenly-minded or benevoleut man, all he sees 
teems with love and perennial beauty ; to the conscience- 
stricken, or the remorseful, the " am'rous descant " of 
the nightingale is as the shrill piercing of the sea-mew, 
the moan of the bittern in her loneliness, or the baying 
of the midnight wolf. The manner of that which we 
see and hear often springs from ourselves. Oh how 
bitterly do the sweet syllables of confiding love fall 
upon the treacherous heart of the conscious wrong-doer ! 
how brightly they shine through the whole soul of the 
faithful listener ! Oh how hardly do undeserved plaudits 
strike the bosom of the self-convicted traitor ! how 
encouraging and how elevating is fair commendation to 
the aspirant to a well-doing life ! 

I care not for the man who can but will not plant hap- 
piness by the broad-cast sowing of a few kind words ; 



98 

and in no place can those words be more prolific of 
healing fruits than around the domestic hearth. It is 
a mistake to suppose that the Lares and Penates of 
ancient times lived only for our forefathers. Why should 
they not be propitiated now ? Why should not the 
ruling powers of a household, and the subalterns of the 
domestic circle severally look up to their presiding genius, 
and invoke, and participate in, the spirit of their home 
deities ? The trifles that contribute to domestic endearment 
are as sweet votive offerings to the Lares, as are the 
weightier matters which ascend to the higher courts of the 
Penates, — manner, — the ordinary civilities of social life, — 
the little self-abnegations and forbearances which express 
so much, are as favourable to domestic happiness, in 
their practical effects, as are the costlier and rarer 
sacrifices, which even the most petulant are sometimes 
ready to make for their brethren. 

If the solemn matter of home manner were duly 
appreciated, if the effect of manner for good or for evil 
amongst our domestic associations were adequately con- 
sidered, and the lesson which the reflection would teach, 
properly learned, society in all its varieties would imbibe 




99 

somewhat of the spirit adverted to by the prophet ;— 
universal charity would cover the face of the earth. 
What a charm does the candid acknowledgment of our 
error cast over the whole family circle, if it be sincere 
and accompanied with such assurances of amendment as 
will clothe the domestic group with hope. How soothing 
and how melting are unobtrusive forbearance, and heartfelt 
consideration for others ! how winning the unaffected 
deportment of generous frankness and sensible good 
nature ! As the soft water will, in time, wear the 
hard stone through, so will perseverance in the exercise 
of a conciliatory and hearty course of conduct inevitably 
end in moulding the adamantine heart even as we will. 
Nor is this all. The habit intensifies and expands within 
bur own hearts and lives ; it nourishes the fruits of a 
right mind ; and the rough and arid desert becomes 
a fertile garden. There is a sweet exchange between 
the desire to please, and the principles which produce that 
desire* What a paradise would home be, if men would 
" consider ; " what a radiant influence would be exercised 
upon the world around; and how gladly would men 
flee to be cheered and warmed by its life-giviug beams ; 



100 

The example and the reward would be the most effi- 
cacious inducement for imitation and practice. 

Must every mind, every fact, every incident, every 
precept, be subject to the rules of mathematics or logic ? 
Must all be under the dominion of ethical requirements ? 
If so, the world would be a gloomy wild, a desolate 
waste ; the sympathies and emotions which tend so 
much to sweeten life, and soften its asperities, which 
acknowledge no law, and about which men, alas, are 
too often ashamed, would be annihilated. If " one touch 
of nature makes the whole world kin," surely he is no 
friend to the delights which soothe us, who would reduce 
to demonstration the inestimable social beauties of the 
heart. With manner, as a faithful emanation from right 
inner principles, a man creates or sustains a friend, or 
subdues a foe in every one he meets ; he " avoids con- 
tention before it be meddled with ; " he presents a serene 
countenance ; he speaks in tones sweeter than- the most 
plaintive music ; he visits the troubled in mind, body, 
or estate, with unostentatious sympathy, and unaffected 
pity ; he offers aid with a still voice, and an unobtrusive 
front ; and he tells not of it ; to use the words of a 



T 



101 

well-known song, he "scatters bliss around ;" and so 
quietly, yet so effectually, does he this, that the souls 
and the hearts which are near him are pervaded with 
perhaps, an undcfinable, but certainly a substantial feeling 
of placidity and repose, like the sensation of judiciously 
blended colours, as they reach, through the eye, the 
inner impulses of our taste. 



Yes, amidst the storms and lurid calms of the life we 
live here, where we should be cautioned more against 
the sweets and pleasant scenes than against the lowering 
skies or the turbulent waters, it is mercifully ordained 
that truth and love within, manifested by the flush of 
truth and love without, are to be cultivated and nourished, 
and are to be regarded as the best boon next to the eternal 
love which is promised as the perfection of happiness here- 
after. How the wound closes and heals at the bare 
utterance of a few kind words ! How confidence is 
excited by the slightest hope of its being generously con- 
strued and faithfully received ; and we may believe that 
the knowledge of one another induced by a life of frank- 
ness and single-heartedness, is promised as one of the 



102 

highest blessings of eternity. "There we shall know 
even as we are k?iown." 

There is a manner in approaching sacred things, which 
is solemn matter. " Walk in the Spirit and ye. shall not 
fulfil the lusts of the flesh." What then ? The manner 
of our associations and the manner of our daily purposes 
are matters which, if properly considered, would result in a 
substantially better life ; the very care produces the prin- 
ciple, the sincere manner of a holy course of conduct ger- 
minates into the matter of a holy purpose. 

The manner of our prayers : first, of our appearing to 
pray : the gesture ; the abstraction from external things ; 
the pervading reverence ; the submission to the dictates 
of the temple, or the sanctity of the closet ; the diligent 
search ; the energetic application as for something all- 
important and most desired ; the utter negation of all 
levity ; the championship for christian right, and christian 
duty ; and nest, the actual praying. There may be no 
answer to your petitions. Go back : what was the man- 
ner of the prayer ? While kneeling,— for you recognise 
external propriety, — was the mind^ wandering far away, 



L~ 



103 

and did you indulge in the deportation ? Were the words 
wind, and were the thoughts worldly ? Was that form 
and were these earnest ? Were the lips the faithful ex- 
ponent of the heart ? 

By the conviction this question suggests, let us solemnly 
and accurately test our right to expect an answer to those 
expressions we dignify by the name of prayer. 

The approach to and the departure from the sanctuary. 
What about the manner here ? Do yon avoid, as Romaine 
did, the indulgence, so common, in secular views and 
secular conversation, as you are wending your way to 
or from the temple, or do you place yourself, with St. 
Francis de Sales, in the presence of God, and then pray ? 
These questions are best answered within your own hearts ; 
I stay not for the reply : it is for you to adopt my sug- 
gestion, and to weigh its import. 

Let us turn our attention for a moment to a subject 
which naturally presents itself for meditation. 

Listen then to the chime of the village church bells, 
on the serene and hallowed morning of an English Sab- 



104 




bath, when " the earth is joyful," and " the mountains 
break forth into singing." An English Sabbath ! What 
recollections does it not call forth ? I do not mean the 
illustrations afforded by desecrating excursion trains or 
steam-boats, nor heathen practices hidden from the public 
gaze, in some old and time-dishonoured plague-spots which 
here and there unhappily infect the land ; but I advert to 
the sacred aspect of an English Sunday Morning when 

" blessed groups this hour are bending 

O'er England's primrose meadow paths their way. 
Towards spire and tower 'midst shadowy elms ascending, 
Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day: 
The halls from old heroic ages gray 
Pour their fair children forth, and hamlets low, 
From whose sweet orchard blooms the soft winds play, 
Send out their inmates in a happy flow, 
Like a freed vernal stream!" 

I have already intimated that the manner of things 
sometimes presents various aspects to our perception, 
arising, it may be from totally extraneous circumstances, 
and sometimes chiefly from our own subjective imagination. 
The scene we have just admired may under another view- 
give a tone to the mind very different from that which 
a bright summer sabbath morning is calculated to produce. 
The same spot, the same sounds, are thus apostrophized by 
another poet : — 



105 

" List to the midnight lone ! 

The church-clock speaketh with a solemn tone: 

Doth it no more than tell the time? 

Hark, from that belfry gray, 

In each deep-booming chime, which, slow and clear, 

Beats like a measured knell upon my ear, 

A stern voice seems to say, 

Gone -Gone; 
The hour is gone— the day is gone." 

Imagination may supply the picture of a solitary being, 
presenting a dark figure on the height yonder, thus think- 
ing aloud, and courting the gloom, while the world below 
is shrouded in the deep shade of midnight stillness. 

It is time now that I brought this essay to a con- 
clusion ; but I find the subject is almost inexhaustible. 
Scarcely a scene, an action, or a principle, but would 
illustrate the matter of manner ; the thoughts I may 
have awakened, nevertheless, may serve as a spring to 
supply the reader with a. stream of reflections. A few 
words may not, however, be totally out of place, upon the 
external peculiarities of some with whom we may come 
in contact. 



Peculiarity of manner appears to be the distinctive 
right of students and great men ; mediocrity cannot 



106 



afford "to possess it. Every one knows the ancient 
story of the ass and the lap-dog : the former, fancying 
he might caper about, because the spaniel was coaxed 
for his little pranks, was soon convinced by the appli- 
ation of the cudgel that he forgot his place. And we 
have all heard of the unfortunate juryman, who was 
always pitted against eleven obstinate men ; and of the 
cross-grained hunter who, having been thrown from his 
horse, was seriously hurt, and had fallen into a swoon : 
when he exhibited signs of life, his companion kindly 
expressed his fears that he was injured. — " No," growled 
he, "rather the contrary." 



I remember, many years since, having sometimes come 
in contact with a very kindThearted man who had attained 
some eminence, but whose manners were occasionally 
very repulsive ; and I have left his presence many times 
stung to the quick and full of malevolence, through his 
uncompliant grnffness. Poor fellow ! he had a wife who 
was just within a shade of the insanity that should have 
made her the inmate of a madhouse ; she was at home 
always arousing his fears, and breaking his heart. They 
have both long since gone to their account ; and I would 



107 

I could rccal the harsh thoughts I have entertained to- 
wards him, little knowing or recking of the crook in 
his lot. It is a lesson to me, and I hope will be a 
warning to others too, to bear more than is usual with 
proud human nature. 

Peculiarities may nevertheless be touched upon, — if 
only to indicate what to avoid. 



The old reformers, for instance, were not distinguished 
for their urbanity : indeed, some of them deigned to 
consign to their opponents pills of brimstone and broth 
of fire. Luther himself was peculiar in his defiant vio- 
lence ; John Knox in his thunder ; Dr. Barrow in his 
awkward slipshod gait ; Kitto, Simeon, Daniel Wilson, 
Bickersteth, Romaine — all eminently learned and holy 
men — in petulancy ; Fenelon for his surpassing tender- 
ness ; Rabelais for his rough and questionable allusions ; 
Lord Thurlow for his coarse invective ; Lords Mansfield 
and EllenborOugh for their indomitable self-will ; Lord 
Brougham for his cynicism ; poor Cowper for his lugu- 
briousness ; Brainerd for his sorrowful mien; Chatterton 
for the melancholy which "marked him for her own;" 



108 



Gray, the gifted author of these words, was taunted 
for his awkward and ungraceful demeanour ; Chalmers 
was peculiar in his brusque bearing ; Legh Richmond 
was characterised by his sensitiveness ; Shelley by his 
waywardness ; Tom Moore by his servile flippancy ; 
Byron by his violence and hastiness ; Swift as being 
querulous : indeed, the memoirs of celebrities teem with 
instances of manner, which would not be tolerated, ex- 
cepting as an accompaniment to high talent and shining 
parts. These great men were chosen, to repeat the figure 
in the early part of this essay, " in spite of the thorn," 
and not because of its presence. You, reader, probably 
have your peculiarity ; assuredly I have mine : I pray 
you pass by the latter lightly, and if it evince, as 
doubtless it does, the "form and pressure" of human 
faults, let me crave your charity and forbearance. 




You and I may both require the exercise of those 
virtues ; and seeing that we cannot know the " secret 
springs of action," which regulate every one's- course, 
justice demands that we should fear and tremble, lest 
we unlawfully consign to punishment, where we would, 
if we knew all, delight in commending. 



■J. 



109 

Imagine the case of two young men with similarly con- 
stituted minds : equally well-educated and introduced, and 
with intentions of a like nature. One is, however, of a 
stature and bearing suggestive of Roman dignity ; the 
other "alike, but oh how different!" and corporeally, 
though not mentally, somewhat flat. What is modesty in 
the one is sheepishness in the other. Our friend with the 
good presence is evidently self-possessed, decisive, and 
distinct. The same indications in the other would savour 
of impudent assumption. And so we would judge, we, 
who stand outside, and can scarcely imagine what is going 
on in each of their minds and hearts ; we admire the one 
and condemn the other. The only natural conclusion and 
moral from this is that we should hesitate before we pro- 
nounce an adverse verdict, and after having made up our 
minds to do so, immediately to decide in the opposite 
direction. It is the safest as it is the most good-natured 
way of treating the subject. Every one of us is the resident 
of a little halo of his own, and we judge the size of every 
one's moon through the medium of our own atmosphere : 
little recking of the inner workings of the small planets 
before us. " All things to all men to win some " is a golden 
maxim, and it is astonishing how rich the harvest is if the 




110 



seed be properly sown and tended. The stream widens 
and deepens when once we cut the shallows ; and now to 
alter the tense of the old and well-accepted line, — fools 
rush in where angels feared to tread. We know we have 
been mistaken oftentimes, even by those who knew us 
best ; may not others be equally mistaken by us ? Let us 
live upon the principle ; and honestly and earnestly believe 
in our associations with the world, that every man means 
rightly until we prove to the contrary. 

And acting thus for ourselves, and thinking thus for 
others, — we may take shelter under the "eleventh com- 
mandmeut," — " A new commandment I give unto you, 
That ye love one another," — (John xiii, 34,) — the 
simplest and most comprehensive of all ; we may de- 
pend upon it, that there is no better illustration of good 
manners and good common sense than true religion ; and 
we may be thankful, after all, that there is so much actual 
simplicity in a well-meaning spirit and a well spent life. 

" Then raise the grateful song of praise 
To that indulgent mighty Power 
Whose will the universe obeys, 
Whose bounty cheers the humblest flower; 
Hail! Source of all, benign and free, 
Thou Spirit of Eternity!" 







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